Too Hot to Handle : Yeltsin ducks the Kuril issue and imperils Russian-Japanese relations

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said the other day that he had 14 different ideas for settling the southern Kuril Islands dispute to offer Japan when he began his scheduled state visit to Tokyo this weekend. It’s now clear that those ideas are destined to remain in Yeltsin’s briefcase, probably for a long time to come.

Forced to choose between trying to resolve what has long been the major irritant in Russo-Japanese relations and risking a right-wing explosion at home if he made concessions on the islands, Yeltsin chose the status quo. Just four days before his visit was to start, he called it off, offending his hosts and dramatizing his own political weakness.

The costs of that retreat will be high. Tokyo has made clear that there will be no major economic aid to Russia until the Kurils dispute is settled. What it wants, at a minimum, is recognition of ultimate Japanese sovereignty over the four small islands, taken as war booty by the Soviet Union in 1945. And indeed the islands are, by rights, Japan’s, Russia having relinquished all claims to them in 1875. Why, then, does Moscow insist on holding on?

One reason is fear of the precedent that could be set if Russia softened or renounced its claims to the territories. Russia over the centuries has grown by imperial expansion; if the islands are let go there is no telling what other territorial claims might be put forward. Besides this worry, the Russian military raises strategic objections to giving up the islands, because the straits between them allow the only year-round passage for nuclear subs into the Pacific Ocean.

Common sense--which so often grows scarce when nationalistic passions are aroused, as now--suggests a number of ways to finesse the Kurils issue. Just eight years after the end of World War II, for example, the United States recognized Japan’s “residual sovereignty” over American-occupied Okinawa and the other Ryuku Islands. In 1972 the islands reverted to Japan. A similar resolution for the Kurils certainly is not inconceivable. It’s obvious now, though, that any such deal must await the emergence in Russia of a leader strong enough to face down his conservative opponents. From the look of things, that wait could be a long one.