opinion

Recently, the Japanese authorities try to expand the exhibition site of the “territorial and sovereignty exhibition hall” in Tokyo. The purpose is to instil in the Japanese people the understanding that the southern Kurils and others are part of their territory.

To this end, they plan to expand the exhibition site introducing the history and natural environment of the southern Kurils by about 300 square metres and present the budget for it next year.

Now, Russia exercises sovereignty over the southern Kurils.

At the talks of victor nations after the Second World War, an agreement was reached on passing the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union. Later, in 1956, the agreement was fixed as a joint declaration between the two countries in the inter-governmental agreement between the Soviet Union and Japan.

It said that the Soviet Union was ready to hand two islands of the southern Kurils over to Japan on condition that a peace treaty was concluded between the Soviet Union and Japan and a series of issues were resolved, including the abolition of all foreign military bases in Japan.

Later, the Soviet Union declared the duty to return the islands according to the 1956 declaration in response to Japan’s revision of the Japan-US  security pact.

Dominium over the southern Kurils is now being exercised by Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union.

Russia’s sovereignty over the Kuril Islands, which was fixed by international law and legalized by the UN Charter, is entirely legal and beyond doubt.

Japan had already declared at the San Francisco meeting in September 1951 that it would give up its dominium over the Kuril Islands. But now it argues that the southern Kurils it had renounced should be returned, talking about Russia’s “illegal occupation” of them.

In the past, too, Japan spread videos depicting the southern Kuril Islands as part of its territory in the G20 summit meeting and even clamoured for securing dominium by war.

Japan’s persistent claim to the southern Kurils is aimed at monopolizing economic interests by seizing resources in the region and, furthermore, realizing its ambition for territorial expansion and overseas reinvasion.

Such a misbehaviour of Japan is little short of a reproduction of the reckless moves of the militarists who embarked on overseas aggression, dreaming of world domination.

If Japan does not want to suffer the miserable fate of the past, it should be prudent and control itself.