Think World War II Is Over? For Soviets and Japanese, It Isn’t : Diplomacy: Japan still claims four tiny islands. But the inhabitants recently voted to remain part of the Soviet Union. Who will give?

When Mikhail S. Gorbachev visits Japan this week, the principal obstacle to improved Japanese-Soviet relations will be Tokyo’s territorial claim to four small islands occupied by the Soviet Union since 1945.

Neither Gorbachev nor his Japanese hosts have much room to compromise. All Japanese political parties strongly endorse the islands’ return, and the Japanese believe they have crucial leverage--more or less explicit linkage of economic assistance to the Soviet Union.

The unsettled situation in the Soviet Union, however, poses a risk for Gorbachev, or any politically vulnerable Soviet leader, over “selling the soil of the Motherland”--an issue already raised in the Soviet press. The matter is further complicated by the jurisdictional rivalry between the central leadership and the Russian Republic. Moreover, in the Soviet referendum last month, the population of the disputed islands not only voted to remain in the Union; 80% specifically voted against ceding the islands to Japan.

Moscow’s claim rests on the fact that the Soviet Union, as a victor in World War II, acquired the Kuril Islands, including the four disputed islands, and there is no reason to reopen the territorial settlement. At Yalta, in February, 1945, the United States and Great Britain agreed that “the Kuril Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.” The Yalta agreement was a compact--the Soviet Union was promised land if it entered the war against Japan. The Soviet Union fulfilled its part of the bargain. So, in late August, early September, 1945, by agreement of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers in Japan, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur, the Soviet Union occupied and took the Japanese surrender in the Kurils including the now-disputed islands. These territories were incorporated into the Sakhalin region of the Russian Republic.

In accepting the Allied surrender terms on Aug. 14, 1945, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration--including its provision that “Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.” No one, least of all the Soviet Union, has since “agreed” that any of the disputed islands are among “such minor islands” to be returned to Japan. Moreover, under the Japanese Peace Treaty, signed in 1951, “Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands.” Though the Soviet Union did not sign this treaty, it still bolsters the Soviet claim.

So what is the Japanese case? Foremost in Japanese sentiment is the historical claim that the four islands are ancestral Japanese soil. But the basis for the Japanese claim under international law is legalistic: The four islands are not part of the Kuril Islands, but adjuncts to Hokkaido island. Hence, Japan claims, it did not renounce title to them.

Regrettably, from the standpoint of clarification, neither the Japanese Peace Treaty nor the Yalta agreement defined the “Kuril Islands.” It is this lacuna that the Japanese have exploited by claiming the four islands--which they now call “the northern territories”--are not part of the Kurils. For its part, the Soviet Union insists that all the disputed islands have always been part of the Kuril Islands.

While diplomatic factors are complex, the geographical question is clear: the two principal islands, Iturup (in Russian; Etorofu in Japanese) and Kunashir (Kunashiri) are southern islands of the Kuril chain, sharing the same volcanic geological spine. The third island, Shikotan, (east of Kunashir) is arguably not part of the Kurils, and the fourth “island,” the Habomai island group, just northeast of Hokkaido, is not. These are geologically distinct, related to Hokkaido.

While the United States is not a party to this thorny dispute, it has been involved from the beginning. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were perhaps cavalier in presenting all the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union--rather than just the northern and central islands, which were Russian before 1875. Roosevelt was apparently never briefed on a State Department study that might have swayed his decision.

In light of the Yalta agreement, President Harry S. Truman, in August, 1945, acquiesced to Josef Stalin’s request to occupy and take the Japanese surrender in all “the Kurils”--while rejecting his request also to occupy the northern half of Hokkaido. But it was MacArthur, without seeking diplomatic advice, who defined the line of Soviet occupation to include Shikotan and the Habomai Islands with the southern Kurils, rather than regarding them as adjuncts to Hokkaido.

Despite the implications of MacArthur’s actions, the United States did not officially accept the Habomai islands as part of the Kurils. In now-declassified internal U.S. government deliberations as the Japanese Peace Treaty was being concluded in 1951, John Foster Dulles (one of the treaty negotiators) noted, “Of course there are some provisions which the Jap(anese) do not like, principally territorial. However, they were accepted when Jap(an) accepted the surrender terms.” With respect to the Habomai islands, however, he left some leeway: “There is no Jap(anese) renunciation of Habomai (under the Treaty) if in fact Habomai (is) not part of the Kurils.”

In several air incidents, beginning in 1950, the United States challenged the Soviet claim to the Habomais. In a formal diplomatic protest in 1954, the United States specifically rejected the Soviet contention that the Habomais were part of the Kurils and so Soviet territory. The U.S. position on Shikotan is less explicit.

In 1945, and in 1951, the United States did consider these islands part of the Kurils. This reflects the general consensus of geographers in the international community. Even the Japanese historical claim, as embodied in an 1855 treaty with Russia first recognizing Japanese sovereignty, treated them as part of the Kuril Islands--undercutting its current claims.

The Japanese claim that the islands are historically Japanese is, at least for the century before 1945, valid but irrelevant. Japan lost the war. A close parallel is the postwar territorial settlement with Germany. Vast areas of Prussia and Silesia had long been German. Yet one price of the recent German reunification and confirmation of the postwar settlement was Germany formally renouncing all claims to this land.

The weight of history suggests the two larger islands are the southern Kurils, and the two smaller islands are not--so Japanese claims to these are stronger. Actually, in 1956, the Soviets did offer to give back those two in a peace treaty--if Japan dropped claims to the others. The offer was not accepted, and was withdrawn in 1960.

There have been recent, unofficial hints that the Soviet Union would retrocede the two smaller islands in a final territorial settlement and peace treaty with Japan. It is, however, doubtful Japan would accept. Some kind of joint Soviet-Japanese economic and political administration is possible--though that seems unlikely to appease either country. The same is true for possible Soviet demilitarization as a substitute for recognition of Japanese sovereignty.

What should the U.S. position be? For several decades, this question has not even been raised. Japan is our ally, and the Soviet Union was our adversary--we supported Japan. With the end of the Cold War, we should re-examine the matter.

The U.S. position was not selfless support of an ally, but careful calculation that the stalemate served U.S. interests. By precluding normalization of relations, the unresolved dispute kept Japan more dependent on the United States and the Soviet Union more isolated. Now the situation has changed. The United States wants to see good relations, not confrontation, between the Soviet Union and Japan; we want to see the dispute resolved rather than welcoming its continued festering. To this end, Washington should counsel mutual accommodation rather than encouraging continued Japanese intransigence.