Introduction
The unresolved territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the Northern Territories/South Kuril Islands remains the largest obstacle to concluding a peace treaty and fully normalizing bilateral relations. The current impasse derives from the Japanese government's demand the return of all four islands and the Russian government's (reluctant) preparedness to hand over only two islands.
It is commonly argued that the Japanese government's claim for the Northern Territories’ return is based on intrinsic rather than functional considerations. The continued Russian occupation of the four islands is said to serve as a painful reminder of the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan, which has left many Japanese with a strong feeling of victimization. Japan's territorial demands are rooted in deeply held beliefs about the injustice of the Russian occupation and the legitimacy of the Japanese claim. The desire to rectify the perceived injustice of the Russian occupation of Japanese lands has made the Japanese political elite less willing to compromise over the claim to the four islands of Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashiri, and Etorofu.
Given its location and status as the symbolic frontline in Japan's irredentistFootnote 1 Northern Territories Reversion Movement (Hoppō Ryōdo Henkan Undō, NTRM), one might expect support for the four-island en bloc claim (yontō ikkatsu henkanron) to be strongest in Nemuro, Hokkaido. This, however, is not necessarily the case, as an increasing number of local residents appear to support variations of a two-plus alpha formula – either the return of Habomai and Shikotan plus continued negotiations over Kunashiri and Etorofu or the return of Habomai and Shikotan, as well an equitable division of the remaining two islands based on land mass – for resolving the longstanding territorial dispute. Demographic and socioeconomic forces have induced these attitudinal changes towards the territorial dispute among local residents. This shift in attitudes has implications for Tokyo's strategy in future negotiations by revealing a potential avenue for compromise in a locale considered to be of vital importance to the nationwide reversion movement.Footnote 2 On a theoretical level, this paper adds to a body of literature on state–society relations in Japan that highlights the state's cooptation of societal interests in politically controversial areas. Civil society groups, initially established to aggregate and articulate local interests, have been reluctant to alter their official positions in accordance with this shift in Nemuro public opinion.
Symbolic importance of the Northern Territories in Japan
Rather than having any significant tangible value, the Northern Territories appear to be primarily of symbolic importance. The symbolism is multifaceted. It is argued variously that the Russian attack on Japan and occupation of the four islands forces the Japanese to remember the painful wartime defeat,Footnote 3 has left the nation feeling victimized,Footnote 4 and is broadly linked to a Japanese sense of identity, which foreign occupation has rendered incomplete.Footnote 5 The desire to rectify this perceived injustice has made Japanese decision makers less willing to compromise in finding a solution to the dispute and less tolerant of the territorial gains of the Soviet Union/Russia as they regard them as illegitimate.Footnote 6 Some even claim that the Northern Territories are such an intrinsic part of Japan and that the issue has become so entrenched in the Japanese consciousness that a ‘Northern Territories Syndrome’ (Hoppō Ryōdo Shōkōgun) has developed.Footnote 7 The four islands’ return is consequently seen as the aspiration of the entire nation, with the issue being elevated to the pedestal of an unquestioned national goal.Footnote 8
It is important to note that Japanese attitudes toward the Northern Territories can also be traced to the notion of opportunity cost; since the dispute has virtually no impact on the material lifestyles of most Japanese citizens, they can remain, on the surface, stubbornly supportive of the four-island claim without having to make any significant sacrifices. This is not the case for many citizens of Nemuro.
Public opinion in Nemuro
Over the past decade, numerous signs have emerged in Nemuro indicating a desire to moderate the Japanese government's territorial negotiating position. These signals are based on both survey and non-survey data.
Non-survey data: Nemuro Citizens Council to Promote the Return of the Northern Territories
In August 2001, the Nemuro Citizens Council to Promote the Return of the Northern Territories (Hoppō Ryōdo Henkan Sokushin Nemuro Shimin Kaigi), which espoused a two-island first policy, was established. The Council's membership included the four fishing cooperatives located in Nemuro and economic organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, the municipal construction association, and the Junior Chamber (plus three individuals).Footnote 9 The Council's chair, the head of the municipal chamber of commerce, Kobayashi Masasuke, was somewhat circumspect when he stated that ‘four islands en bloc would be ideal but I hope territorial negotiations can be accelerated. I want to support the government's diplomacy.’Footnote 10 Former LDP heavyweight, Suzuki Muneo, who would soon fall from grace following his involvement in bid-rigging for government-funded aid projects in the Northern Territories in 2002, attended the meeting as a special guest. Suzuki was more direct regarding the Council's establishment, declaring that ‘where have principles gotten us over the 56 years of the postwar era? There are various approaches to [achieving] a big objective.’Footnote 11 The principle Suzuki railed against was the four-island en bloc policy. This was, in fact, modified during the Miyazawa administration (November 1991 to August 1993), but still called for Russia's recognition of Japanese sovereignty over all four islands although Japan would initially receive two islands (Habomai and Shikotan) followed by the remaining two at a later date. Along with two allies in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimushō), Tōgō Kazuhiko and Satō Masaru, Suzuki's name became synonymous with the ‘two-islands first’, or ‘phased return policy’ (dankaiteki kaiketsuron) as he preferred to call it.Footnote 12 Yoshino Yoshimasa, the head of the local branch of the LDP who played a central role in establishing the Council stated that, ‘I fear that if we continue like this, Nemuro will be ruined. This is an independent undertaking.’Footnote 13 The Council was disbanded in late 2002 in the wake of Suzuki's arrest.
Nemuro's restructuring proposal
In response to the lack of progress in the territorial dispute following the Russo-Japanese leaders’ summit in November 2005, local government officials in Nemuro subprefecture (shichō, comprising Nemuro City and the towns of Betsukai, Nakashibetsu, Shibetsu, and Raosu) decided to solicit opinions from both local residents and citizens around the nation regarding ways to rebuild the NTRM and promote the regional economy. Drawing upon these views, local authorities formulated a new proposal that they presented to the prefectural and central government in February 2006.Footnote 14 The proposal comprises three broad measures: (1) reconstructing the NTRM and exchanges with the disputed islands, (2) implementing direct support measures for the former Japanese islanders, and (3) implementing countermeasures to promote the regions adjacent to the Northern Territories. The first measure is of direct relevance to this paper. It recognizes that efforts at molding domestic public opinion have been insufficient and that given the likelihood of a lengthy wait before the islands are returned to Japan, improving education and nurturing the next generation of successors to guide the NTRM is important.Footnote 15 The document is notable for what it lacks: explicit reference to the ‘return of two islands first’ approach, which has surfaced in Nemuro in recent years – a point recognized by a local newspaper.Footnote 16 This absence is all the more surprising given that during an address at the local headquarters of Chishima Renmei in December 2005, Nemuro Mayor, Fujiwara Hiroshi, spoke of returning to a ‘realistic policy’ (genjitsuron) – implying support for a compromise solution – as a contrast to the present policy, which ‘could take decades or hundreds of years’ to achieve its objective.Footnote 17 Opinion seems to be divided on the proposal: while one local official claimed the document reflected the general will of those living within Nemuro subprefecture, others argued it was overly abstract and a disappointment to local residents.Footnote 18
Mayor Fujiwara's statement
Whether he was personally dissatisfied with the above-mentioned document and felt it necessary to speak out as a result remains unclear, but in June 2006 Mayor Fujiwara, citing ‘non-return fatigue’ (mihenkan hirō), declared during a session of the local assembly that while he could not renounce Japanese sovereignty over the four islands, he would accept the ‘two-islands first’ policy as a means of breaking the impasse over the territorial dispute.Footnote 19 This statement marked the first time a Nemuro mayor had openly expressed support for a staged-return policy and created a stir amongst those in the NTRM. While some lauded the mayor for his courageous statement, others were scathing in their criticism, claiming it would serve to push back resolution of the territorial dispute and lead to the demise of the movement.Footnote 20 Despite the criticism, Fujiwara could gain some solace from local public opinion surveys.
Survey data
While surveys of Nemuro residents are quantitatively inferior to those taken of the current Russian inhabitants of the disputed islands, a sufficient number have been conducted over the last decade which reveal that cracks in the purportedly monolithic four-island en bloc view are slowly emerging. For instance, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey of 500 former Japanese islanders conducted in April 2001, 28% replied that they would accept the ‘two-islands first’ policy while 13% were opposed. If the condition that the four islands are recognized as Japanese territory were added, 51% would accept the ‘two-islands first’ policy.Footnote 21
According to the results of a Rotary Club survey of 500 Nemuro residents released in February 2002, those favouring a two islands first policy and the four islands en bloc approach were virtually even, registering 49% and 47%, respectively.Footnote 22 In autumn 2005, the Hokkaidō Shimbun and Hokkaido University conducted a joint survey of Hokkaido residents, asking their views of the government's policy of seeking from Russia recognition of Japanese sovereignty over the four disputed islands. The survey revealed that on average 73% of residents of Sapporo, Hakodate, Kushiro, Otaru, and Wakkanai supported the policy. On the other hand, 56% of respondents in Nemuro expressed support for the four-island policy while 42% believed it should be revised. When asked about their preferred mode of revision, a majority of respondents (57%) favoured initially recovering Habomai and Shikotan and continuing negotiations over the fate of Etorofu and Kunashiri – the 1956 Joint Declaration formula. Nobody in Nemuro expressed support for a policy entailing the reversion of only Habomai and Shikotan while leaving Etorofu and Kunashiri under Russian control.Footnote 23 In short, while most Hokkaido residents support the government's negotiating position, majority opinion in Nemuro seems to favour a variant of the two islands plus alpha formula.
However, it is important to note that opinion in Nemuro towards the territorial dispute is not monolithic and changes subtly upon introduction of one important variable: the former islanders.Footnote 24 Focusing on the 43 former islanders who replied in the 2002 Rotary Club survey, it is evident that 75% supported the four islands en bloc policy while 21% favoured the two islands approach.Footnote 25 If we adopt the reverse technique and exclude the 41 residents who are related to the former islanders from the 100 Nemuro respondents in the Autumn 2005 poll, just over half (30 out of 59) supported a revision of the four islands en bloc policy.Footnote 26 Based on these data, it is therefore plausible to conclude that a division exists in Nemuro between former islanders and their descendants, on the one hand, and those with no residential links to the Northern Territories, on the other. As discussed below, additional surveying, however, casts doubt over this assumption.
In July 2005, a professor at Hokkaido University's renowned Slavic Research Center and an authority on Russian diplomacy, Iwashita Akihiro, conducted his own survey of Nemuro residents focusing on those who had attended a special forum organized by the Nemuro Chamber of Commerce and thus could be considered to be especially interested in the Northern Territories dispute. Among those attending the forum, 96 replied to the questionnaire.Footnote 27 The results pertaining most to this study appear in the following table.
Table 1. Professor Iwashita's 2005 Survey of Nemuro Residents
Source: Iwashita Akihiro, Hoppō Ryōdo Mondai, pp.185–90.
The survey clearly indicates that more than 60% of the respondents believe the ‘four islands en bloc’ policy should be revised, which is more than double the number of those who believe it should be maintained. It is also important to note that respondents were completely opposed to a ‘two-island resolution’ that would compel Japan to renounce its claims over Etorofu and Kunashiri. The majority, in fact, prefer two variations of the two plus alpha formula: (1) return of two islands plus continued negotiations over Etorofu and Kunashiri or (2) return of two islands as well as a part of Etorofu and Kunashiri. As Iwashita notes, a particularly salient point arising from the survey data is that Nemuro residents do not necessarily see the four disputed islands as comprising an indivisible set.Footnote 28 This has obvious implications for Tokyo's basic negotiating position.
Focusing on the former islanders and their descendants, among the 34 respondents who had relatives on the four islands, 29% (10) believed that Japan should adhere to the four islands en bloc policy while 68% (23) thought Japan should revise this policy. Among the 62 without relatives who lived on the islands, 27% (17) thought the policy should be maintained and 63% (39) were of the opinion that it ought to be revised. The ratio of both groups is virtually the same, with about two thirds supporting revision. Conversely, among the 62 who thought policy should be revised, 37% (23) had relatives on the islands and 63% (39) did not have relatives. Among the 27 respondents who believed the policy should be maintained, 37% (10) had relatives on the islands and 63% (17) did not. This is exactly the same ratio. As Iwashita again observes, this is significant, as there appears to be virtually no division between those residents in Nemuro related to the former islanders and those who are not.Footnote 29 In other words, Nemuro residents are becoming amenable to a variant of the two islands plus alpha formula for resolving the territorial dispute, irrespective of background and personal links to the islands.
Why reconsider the ‘Four Islands En Bloc’ policy?
Nemuro's economic decline
Nemuro is located at the easternmost point of the northern island of Hokkaido. Much of the city lies on the Nemuro Peninsula, which is washed on one side by the Sea of Okhotsk and the other by the Pacific Ocean. These waters are blessed with abundant marine resources, making them allegedly one of the world's three great fisheries, which contain the spawning grounds for several commercially viable fish species.Footnote 30 Given Nemuro's relative proximity to the rich northern sea fisheries and its cold climate, which makes the region unsuitable for rice cultivation, it is not surprising that fishing became a key industry for the local economy.
The Soviet occupation of the Kuril Islands and the assertion of a 12 nautical mile territorial limit meant that the islands’ fisheries had become mostly off-limits to Japanese fishing vessels. This did not, however, necessarily mean Japanese fishers were completely excluded from these disputed waters. After a bilateral agreement was reached in 1963, a limited number of Japanese vessels were permitted to harvest seaweed for three months a year around Kaigara Island – part of the Habomai Islets.Footnote 31 Some fishers were involved in more clandestine activities. Certain groups operated boats known as goshuinsen or ‘honourable red seal boats’ that would supply Soviet border guards with coveted consumer goods, whilst others (reposen or ‘report boats’) would provide information considered important by Soviet security organs in return for money and the ‘privilege of fishing without harassment’.Footnote 32 For fishers still seeking to operate in these waters without permission from Soviet authorities, many of whom piloted custom built, high-speed vessels (tokkōsen) and were linked to Japanese organized crime syndicates, ‘harassment’ entailed possible capture by border guard patrols, interment, fines, confiscation of vessels, and, in extreme cases, being fired upon, with sometimes fatal consequences.Footnote 33 Japanese fishers were driven further away from their traditional fishing grounds following the Soviet Union's introduction of a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in 1977. The blow of this declaration was softened only slightly by a bilateral agreement on fishing quotas, which represented a dramatic decline compared with the annual catch in the same area the previous year.Footnote 34
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War might have defused military tensions in the northern Pacific but the newly emergent Russian Federation's troubled attempts at state-building presented new challenges. The early fallout from Russia's fitful transition to a liberal democratic market economy – a fluid and inadequate commercial legal framework to regulate the fishing industry, a confiscatory tax regime, burdensome regulations, inefficient port procedures, and the sorry financial plight of Russia's armed forces and law enforcement agencies – contributed to an extraordinary upsurge in poaching and smuggling of fish and marine products by a large consortium of participants on both sides of the disputed Russo-Japanese maritime border, including organized crime groups.Footnote 35 There is no denying that the Nemuro economy received a boost from providing a broad range of industry support activities for Russian fishing vessels and crews unloading their catches in local ports. However, this cannot mask the fact that local fishers and the fish processing industry have suffered from declining catches since the late 1970s as international regulations have come into effect to combat dwindling fish stocks – a problem exacerbated by the illegal trade in fish and marine products.Footnote 36 Moreover, the re-centralization of power in Russia under former President Putin and enhanced cooperation between authorities in both countries in recent years has brought a measure of order to the northern Pacific fisheries, which has curbed poaching and smuggling in these waters, but has also led to a drop in the number of Russian fishing vessels docking in Nemuro.
Given its peripheral location and status as the birthplace and frontline in the NTRM, the central and prefectural governments have been cognizant of the need to stimulate growth in Nemuro and have invested in generous public works programs and provided other forms of economic assistance. This has greatly helped Nemuro but made it dependent upon state beneficence.Footnote 37 Since 1962, the Japanese government has provided low interest finance to assist the business, living and educational expenses of those who formerly possessed fishing rights in the disputed waters, their successors, and the former islanders.Footnote 38 In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's decision to introduce a 200 nautical mile EEZ in 1977, the Diet enacted a ‘Law Concerning Special Measures to Promote a Resolution of the Northern Territories Dispute etc.’ in August 1982. The law called for the creation of a 10 billion yen fund (the Northern Fund or Hoppō Kikin) of which 80% would be funded by Tokyo and 20% by the Hokkaido Prefectural Government. The investment profits from this fund were earmarked for industrial development (fisheries and agriculture), maintaining education, cultural and medical facilities, and the NTRM in Nemuro subprefecture. The fund reached its intended target of 10 billion yen in 1991.Footnote 39 It is perhaps fortuitous that a large portion of the funding for this program was disbursed during the bubble-era when capital was aplenty. The collapse of the bubble economy, which plunged the nation into its worst postwar recession in the 1990s, and the government's inability to spur a strong and sustained domestic recovery (the slightly improved performance between 2003–07 notwithstanding) have severely impacted upon the economic fortunes of Nemuro and other rural centres in Japan. Depopulation is just one indicator of Nemuro's economic health; the population peaked at just under 50,000 during the late 1960s but has been in perpetual decline since, numbering 30,881 in 2008 as the young in particular move to the metropolitan areas in search of work.Footnote 40
Nemuro's socio-economic malaise has created a milieu more receptive to a pragmatic approach to resolving the Northern Territories dispute. It is local fishing cooperatives in particular who have long sought a moderation of the Japanese government's negotiating strategy.Footnote 41 It is worth noting that local proponents of a compromise solution would ideally prefer a reversion of all four islands. However, this intransigent all or nothing approach has partly contributed to the longstanding stalemate in the territorial dispute and has led to a receptiveness on the part of the local fishing industry to Russian propositions such as the 1994 Pokidin proposal, which gives local fishers permission to operate in the islands’ fisheries, within limits, in return for the payment of ‘resource protection’ fees. It has also forced fishers to engage in the type of dangerous, clandestine operations outlined above when catches from these agreements are insufficient. The primary reason underlying the predilection for pragmatism, which commonly entails an initial reversion of the Habomai Islets and Shikotan, lay in the EEZ these two islands command. While the Habomai Islets and Shikotan comprise only 7% of the total area of the Northern Territories, their EEZ is both large and rich in marine resources (see Figure 1).Footnote 42 The reversion of these two islands to Japan would give local fishers legal access to these abundant fisheries, which would obviate the necessity of them constantly having to run the gauntlet of Russian Border Guard patrols. One can gain a sense of the importance of the two islands’ EEZ for the local economy by going back in time to examine the response of Nemuro residents to news of the signing of the 1956 Joint Declaration; the general mood can be characterized as one of relief and satisfaction.Footnote 43
Figure 1 The Northern Territories’ EEZ
Source: Adapted from Iwashita Akihiro, Hoppō Ryōdo Mondai, p. 165.
It is not only the Nemuro fishing industry that would stand to benefit from a reversion of Habomai and Shikotan. Some anticipate that a resumption of Japanese control over these islands will pave the way for a large infusion of public works spending, with local construction firms, and subsequently the city's coffers, receiving the biggest boost.Footnote 44 Others meanwhile have hoped to reap the political dividends of a partial return of the disputed islands. There was speculation that Suzuki Muneo was behind the establishment of the Nemuro Citizens Council to Promote the Return of the Northern Territories as a means of furthering his own political ambitions.Footnote 45 It has been the poor state of the islands’ physical infrastructure that has fuelled expectations of a public works spending windfall. The four islands, as well as the rest of the Kuril chain, have long been neglected by central authorities in distant Moscow, as well as Sakhalin, which has jurisdiction over them. The Soviet Union saw the islands as a vital strategic outpost, protecting its SLBM bastion in the Sea of Okhotsk. The military and security dominated socioeconomic and political life on the Kurils and ‘closely guarded the border from intrusion of insidious forces of capitalism’Footnote 46 – hardly conditions conducive to the islands’ economic development. Taking advantage of diminishing military tensions in the region resulting from the end of the Cold War, the Russian government sought both foreign investment in the islands and formulated extravagant development programs to stimulate their economy but its plans were thwarted by inter alia a chaotic commercial environment and insufficient finance. This situation changed under the Putin regime. Buoyed by rising oil prices (at least until late 2008), the Russian government announced a new federal program for the Kuril Islands’ socioeconomic development in 2007. Moscow pledged 18 billion roubles in infrastructure spending over nine years on Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and Paramushir in the northern Kurils.Footnote 47 Not only does Moscow's commitment to this program suggest a hardening of its stance in territorial negotiations but it also could have negative implications for the fragile ecosystem of the islands and adjacent waters – a concern that would not be alleviated by extending the reach of Japan's ‘construction state’ (doken kokka) to the two islands.Footnote 48
Demographic crisis: ageing of Nemuro population and the NTRM
According to official Japanese sources, by 15 August 1945, the day Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's acceptance of unconditional surrender, there were 17,291 Japanese residents living on the four islands.Footnote 49 The population breakdown of the four islands was as follows: Kunashiri – 7,364, Habomai – 5,381, Etorofu – 3,608, and Shikotan – 1,038. Interestingly, this is almost the inverse of the current Russian settlement of the islands, which is concentrated on Etorofu. During the approximately two years between the Red Army's invasion and the first of the deportations in July 1947, nearly half of the Japanese islanders had fled the harsh conditions of life under Soviet occupation. After a period of internment under similarly grim conditions on Sakhalin, the remaining (8,569) Japanese residents of the islands were shipped to Hakodate in southern Hokkaido in a process that was completed by late 1948.Footnote 50 Over half of the Japanese islanders decided to settle in Nemuro. There are two main reasons believed to be behind this decision. First, the islands had a strong relationship with Nemuro; many of the islanders had relatives in Nemuro, and considered town residents to be from their ‘main family’ (honke no hito). Second, the majority of the deportees were small-scale fishers who found it difficult to switch occupations and considered it to be advantageous to resettle close to the islands’ fisheries. Some also wished to remain near their former homes and kept records of property and other assets they were forced to leave behind in the archives of the regional branch of the Justice Bureau in Kushiro in the event the Soviet and Japanese governments resolved the issue of the islands’ ownership.Footnote 51
Mirroring Japanese society's broader demographic crisis, the product of a declining birth rate and increasing life expectancy, the NTRM comprises an ageing membership. Less than half (7,797) of the original 17,291 Japanese islanders are alive today and their average age is over 74.Footnote 52 The ageing and slowly dwindling number of Japanese islanders has fuelled concerns that the NTRM will simply peter out if the current situation continues. This is most keenly felt in Nemuro, with the local branch of Chishima Renmei suffering a nearly 50% decline in membership between 1984 and 2007, partly due to youngsters seeking employment opportunities in the nation's major urban centres.Footnote 53 Concerned parties have attempted to counter this trend and revitalize the movement by seeking the involvement of the younger generation through a vast array of consciousness-raising measures. There are believed to be over 28,000 second, third, and fourth generation islanders scattered nationwide but many seem to have little interest in the territorial dispute. Indeed, only 5% have signed on as members of Chishima Renmei.Footnote 54
Not only do the younger generations lack interest in the reversion movement but many have also come to embrace opinions that are seemingly incongruent with the official Japanese position. This is evident in an annual high school speech contest held in Sapporo – one of the many publicity measures designed to heighten youth interest in the territorial dispute. One observer of the proceedings over a four-year period noted that only a minority upheld the traditional view that all four islands should be returned en bloc. Instead, some made absolutely no mention of the territorial dispute, choosing to emphasize the importance of maintaining friendly ties with Russia. Based on their experience of participating in the visa-less exchange program, some claimed coexisting with Russia was more important than recovering the islands while others voiced support for the ‘two-islands first’ approach (nitō senkō henkanron).Footnote 55 There is a certain irony inherent in this last comment given that this politicized cultural exchange program partly aims at ‘capturing the hearts and minds of the Russian islanders, thereby securing their understanding and support for reversion of the Northern Territories to Japan’.Footnote 56 It seems that it is young Japanese rather than young Russians who have moderated their views on the territorial dispute.
Limits of change in a ‘bureaucrat's movement’
What has been the response outside Nemuro to this emerging desire for a more moderate approach to the Northern Territories dispute in the spiritual home of northern irredentism, especially among the interest groups that purportedly represent the interests of the former islanders and their descendents? A survey of Japan's associational landscape reveals the difficulties involved for those seeking to engineer a ‘shift from below’ in Tokyo's basic negotiating strategy.Footnote 57
Japan's northern irredentists posit that the NTRM has its genesis in a petition the Mayor of Nemuro, Andō Ishisuke, sent to the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, on 1 December 1945 – less than four months after the Emperor's announcement of Japan's capitulation.Footnote 58 The petition emphasized that the Habomai Islets were, in fact, a part of Nemuro and that Shikotan, Kunashiri, and Etorofu had been Japanese territory since feudal times. Interestingly, Andō's petition also refers to the latter three islands as both the Kuril and South Kuril Islands.Footnote 59 Nevertheless, while this petition argued against Soviet occupation of the islands, it would be misleading to assert that a unified claim for reversion of the four islands as a collective emerged from the grassroots at this early juncture in postwar Nemuro.Footnote 60 Indeed, a number of small, irredentist groups emerged throughout Hokkaido following Andō's ultimately failed petition and they ‘shared no consensus on what lands the Soviet Union should give back [to Japan]’.Footnote 61 This consensus was forged after the Japanese government ‘stepped in and began to merge [these] hitherto disparate bodies into several manageable enterprises’Footnote 62 once it had overcome its own divisions during the final stages of normalization negotiations with the Soviet Union in late 1956. In order to consolidate this new consensus around the four-island claim, the government introduced a lexical reform, when, in 1964, it issued a directive that the four islands it sought to recover be referred to as the ‘Northern Territories’.Footnote 63 The Japanese government's role in shaping the NTRM led critics to label it a ‘bureaucrat's movement’.Footnote 64
The NTRM today is dominated primarily by three organizations, which have overlapping membership.Footnote 65 In Japan, the state–society boundary is blurred. With some variation, all three groups, therefore, maintain a close association with the state at either the central or the subnational levels (prefectural and municipal governments). The relationship is, to a certain extent, a hybrid of state and societal corporatism.Footnote 66 The first two groups were initially organized ‘from below’ but were coopted by the state after establishment. They are dependent upon state beneficence and are penetrated by officialdom; they can be considered peak associations but are organized regionally not nationally; membership does not appear to be compulsory, although it is encouraged. The third body was organized ‘from above’, operates nationally and can be best described as essentially parastatal. For many years, both state and societal interests were largely congruent within the context of an expanding economy. However, due to the socioeconomic and demographic changes outlined above, there are signs of an emerging divergence between the interests of the state and society – the latter represented by Nemuro where considerations regarding the opportunity cost of the four islands en bloc policy weigh most heavily. In many ways, the Japanese state has responded to the emergence of civil society actors with politically sensitive demands through corporatist arrangements. All three organizations, with varying emphasis, engage in a vast range of consciousness-raising activities, providing welfare to the former islanders and lobbying the national government.
The oldest of the groups and thought to be the closest to the ‘grassroots’ is the League of Residents of Chishima and Habomai (Chishima Habomai Shotō Kyojūsha Renmei, hereafter Chishima Renmei), which was first established in 1955.Footnote 67Chishima Renmei grew out of an organization called the League of Residents of the Kuril Archipelago (Chishima Rettō Kyojūsha Renmei), which was formed in Sapporo in 1954. It developed under the leadership of a former repatriate from Etorofu, Takagi Jūkichi, who had to overcome great difficulty in order to coordinate the diverse interests of the several island-specific groups that had sprung up in Nemuro and bring them into the organization.Footnote 68 It is headquartered in Sapporo and operates 15 branches nationwide. Thirteen of these offices are located in Hokkaido, of which five are based in Nemuro subprefecture. As of March 2008, it has a membership of 4,385. Not surprisingly, the Nemuro branch is the largest with 984 members. Full membership of the organization is restricted to the former islanders, their spouses, and descendents, as well as those possessing property, fishing rights, or mining rights (and their descendents) before Japan's surrender in August 1945. Individuals and groups who support the activities of Chishima Renmei can become patron members.Footnote 69
The second of the irredentist organizations, the Japan League for the Return of Northern Territories (Hoppō Ryōdo Fukki Kisei Dōmei, hereafter Hoppō Dōmei) was established in 1963 but can trace its origins ‘to petitionary clusters in the early 1950s’.Footnote 70Hoppō Dōmei is similarly headquartered in Sapporo and maintains 15 branches throughout Hokkaido. It has a three-tier membership structure, which comprises a large and diverse array of supporters including local notaries, fisheries organizations, agricultural groups, credit unions, chambers of commerce, incorporated civil society organizations, and national and (Hokkaido) prefectural legislators. In a remarkable display of subnational government support, every city, town, and village in Hokkaido has signed on as a member of the organization.Footnote 71
The Northern Territories Issue Association (Hoppō Ryōdo Mondai Taisaku Kyōkai, hereafter Hoppō Kyōkai) was established in October 1969 as an organization responsible for conducting consciousness-raising measures on a national scale. In doing so, it assumed all responsibilities of the former Northern Association (Hoppō Kyōkai) and took over some of the tasks of the Association for Relief of our Compatriots in the Southern Areas (Nampō Dōhō Engokai). Of the three organizations, the Association maintains the closest links with the government and can be best described as a parastatal body. From 1962–2006, it provided over 36.3 billion yen (nearly US$370 million) in low interest loans to former Japanese islanders and eligible fishers.
Chishima Renmei, Hoppō Dōmei, and Hoppō Kyōkai have assumed prominence among the myriad of organizations in Japan calling for a return of the disputed islands primarily because of a strict regulatory framework governing civil society organizations. As Robert Pekkanen notes, the Japanese state plays a significant role in shaping the associational landscape by bestowing legal status to organizations that engage in activities congruent with the public interest and erecting barriers in the path of legitimization for groups that may challenge it.Footnote 72 In the case of the Northern Territories, the public interest has been defined since 1956 as the return of four islands en bloc – a policy that the three groups officially support. It is the competent bureaucratic authority that has the power to grant legal status to civil society organizations. This entails a quid pro quo: groups obtain legitimacy and material benefits such as public funds and preferential tax treatment but must submit to a rigorous regime of bureaucratic monitoring and sanctioning.Footnote 73
Chishima Renmei was given legal status in July 1958 by the Prime Minister while Hoppō Dōmei was given official approval by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in April 1965. Chishima Renmei and Hoppō Dōmei are both incorporated associations (shadan hōjin). Among the legal categories of civil society groups in Japan, incorporated associations are subject to most stringent permitting standards regarding establishment. The relevant bureaucratic authority gave both groups ‘permission’ (kyoka) for incorporation, giving it significant discretion when deciding on the latter's application.Footnote 74 This amount of bureaucratic discretion can probably be linked to the sensitive nature of the territorial dispute and the desire to ensure that state and society both spoke with one voice on the issue. Hoppō Kyōkai was initially administered as an extra-governmental body of the Prime Minister's Office but became an independent administrative corporation (dokuritsu gyōsei hōjin) in 2003. Its competent ministries are the Cabinet Office, specifically, the Northern Territories Affairs Administration (Hoppō Taisaku Honbu) and the Fisheries Agency within the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries – the latter's involvement is a reflection of the salience of the fisheries element of the territorial dispute.
The practice of amakudari (literally ‘descent from heaven’) can assist a supervising ministry in its monitoring of civil society groups that have attained legal status.Footnote 75 Under this system, which has come under widespread criticism for fuelling corruption and has subsequently come under tighter regulations, retired government officials often find employment as advisers in organizations that were under their former bureaucratic jurisdiction. Pekkanen describes amakudari as ‘the price of gaining legal status’ for civil society groups in Japan.Footnote 76Hoppō Dōmei and Chishima Renmei, on the surface at least, seem to represent exceptions to this trend. Hoppō Dōmei's board has 44 members who all serve in a part-time capacity and comprises a wide array of elites from Hokkaido: mayors, branch heads of the organization, labour and fishing cooperative leaders, as well as civil society groups. It is chaired by former Hokkaido Governor, Hori Tatsuya, who was born in southern Sakhalin – then the former Japanese colony of Karafuto. Chishima Renmei's 24-strong board of directors predominately comprises former islanders, specifically the branch heads and other leading figures of the organization. Ten hail from Nemuro subprefecture and, of these, four from Nemuro city.Footnote 77 The board's composition seems to reflect Chishima Renmei's standing as a grassroots organization. However, this does not necessarily mean it can completely avoid state monitoring. The position of executive director of the board (senmu riji) is traditionally reserved for a retired Hokkaido Prefectural Government (HPG) official. Chishima Renmei has a 12-member secretariat, which is also headed by and draws half of its staff from HPG ‘old boys’.Footnote 78 In this case, it is the local arm of the state that maintains a measure of influence over civil society through the practice of amakudari. This influence could rise further if a proposal by Hokkaido Governor, Takahashi Harumi, to merge Chishima Renmei's secretariat with those of its sister organizations within the NTRM is realized.Footnote 79
Another source of state influence is linked to finance. As incorporated associations, Chishima Renmei and Hoppō Dōmei are eligible to receive public funding and preferential tax treatment. In fact, both receive generous state support. Almost one third of Hoppō Dōmei's revenue comes from public subsidies.Footnote 80Chishima Renmei is especially dependent, relying on Gaimushō and HPG subsidies to fund approximately 85% of its activities. Chishima Renmei's only independent source of income derives from annual membership fees (2000 yen) and from renting out facilities in its Nemuro headquarters (Chishima Kaikan).Footnote 81 The organization's aforementioned demographic woes make it extremely unlikely that it will be able to enhance sufficiently its financial independence. Without state financial support, Chishima Renmei, in particular, would no longer be able to function effectively.
One may not be surprised by the fact that the Japanese state withholds support from civil society groups that oppose it. However, it is important to note that despite imposing a strict regulatory regime on groups that aspire to legal status, especially advocacy groups, the state does not actively suppress organizations and individuals who express dissent. As Frank Schwartz notes, ‘Japan may be the strictest of all advanced industrial democracies in regulating the incorporation of NGOs . . . [but] Japanese enjoy a high degree of freedom.’Footnote 82 Japan's major political parties, apart from the Japan Communist Party, which believes Russia should return the entire Kuril chain, support the four-island en bloc policy. Public opinion surveys of Japanese citizens reveal that most respondents consider the Northern Territories to be Japanese territory and a plurality (39.5%) believe the four islands should be returned en bloc.Footnote 83 While Japanese views on the Northern Territories are based, to a certain extent, on beliefs about the injustice of the Russian occupation of the islands and the legitimacy of the Japanese claim, they are also testament to the success of public opinion mobilization and socialization.Footnote 84
Nevertheless, dissenting voices do exist among Japan's public opinion shapers regarding the Northern Territories dispute but tend to be confined to a small number of scholars, such as Wada Haruki and Nakajima Mineo, who have in the past expressed support in general interest journals for variants of the two-island proposal.Footnote 85 One such variant that has quietly emerged from Japanese academic circles in recent years involves equally dividing the total area of the four islands among the two claimants. This division would result in Japan gaining sovereignty over Habomai, Shikotan, and Kunashiri (a further variant calls for Etorofu to be divided between the two) and Russia retaining control over Etorofu (either in full or half). Iwashita Akihiro, whose Nemuro survey is discussed above, is one scholar who has been associated with the so-called ‘50–50’ proposal. In a well-publicized study, Iwashita discussed the applicability of the 1991 Sino-Russian border demarcation agreement, part of which entailed the equitable division of disputed lands, to the Northern Territories dispute.Footnote 86 The book won awards in Japan – a possible sign of growing acceptance of a compromise solution. However, Iwashita was criticized by the right-wing media for putting forward such a proposal, which he denied, claiming he merely ran a simulation, applying the case of the Sino-Russian border demarcation agreement to the Russo-Japanese territorial dispute as an academic exercise. Fearing his work could create further misunderstanding and controversy, Iwashita took the unusual step of adhering to a public vow of silence on Northern Territories-related matters.Footnote 87
Political actors have also begun to express alternative preferences to Tokyo's basic negotiating position. As noted above, Hokkaido politician, Suzuki Muneo, was outspoken in his support for a ‘phased resolution policy’ and had considerable backing from his constituents in Nemuro. However, Suzuki's arrest on charges of rigging bids for government-funded aid projects on the islands led many to question his motives in seeking a compromise solution to the territorial dispute, which subsequently served to diminish any support that might have existed for this strategy on a national level.Footnote 88 For many, the ‘phased resolution policy’ became synonymous with corruption. Former Prime Minister, Asō Taro, and government representative, Taniuchi Shōtaro, are also alleged to have voiced support for the ‘50–50’ plan in recent times, although both deny this.Footnote 89 Espousing anything but the four-island claim has long been considered a taboo in Japan. While alternative visions of a resolution to the territorial dispute are no longer strictly off-limits, those seeking to compromise on Tokyo's basic negotiating position will continue to earn the wrath of Japan's ubiquitous right and establishment hardliners vehemently opposed to any territorial concessions.
While a few public opinion shapers and political figures might appear to support a compromise to the government's basic negotiating position, as noted above, a significant number of individuals and organizations in Nemuro have expressed a desire to moderate the four-island en bloc policy. This preparedness to accept moderation also extends to elements within the NTRM in Nemuro. In 2005, the youth wing of Chishima Renmei's Nemuro branch (Chishima Habomai Shotō Kyojūsha Renmei Nemuro Shibu Seinenbu), concerned about a lack of progress in Russo-Japanese territorial negotiations, conducted a survey of its members’ views of the dispute. The survey revealed that 56% of members expressed support for a resolution based on the 1956 Joint Declaration, 26% favoured a policy seeking Russian confirmation of Japanese sovereignty over the four islands (and flexibility over the timing and modalities of a return), and only 1% backed a strategy aimed at recovering the four islands en bloc.Footnote 90 The survey results led to a debate the following year on the official position the organization should adopt: continue adhering to the principled position (four islands en bloc) or support a phased return including the two islands first policy. The adoption of a position incongruent with the existing four islands en bloc policy by an organization comprising the descendants of the original Japanese islanders could have shaken the foundations of the NTRM or at the very least complicated relations with the parent body. Proponents of change, however, would have been somewhat disappointed with the Nemuro youth branch's official policy declaration in March 2007. While the document mentioned the inability of the four islands en bloc policy to break the status quo and the subsequent need to develop the movement in every possible way in order to resolve the territorial dispute, it stopped short of explicitly endorsing a specific policy – one that might contradict the government's position.Footnote 91 In this sense, it did not completely reflect the views of its members expressed in the earlier survey. This is perhaps unsurprising given that as an incorporated association subject to government oversight and funding, it is highly unlikely to make any statement which conflicts or even modifies the official position. Moreover, the organization's internal governance structure would probably prevent such a deviation.Footnote 92
While the youth wing of Chishima Renmei's Nemuro branch can be accused of failing to incorporate fully the majority view of its members in its official policy declaration, its parent body flatly refuses to accept anything other than the four islands en bloc policy.Footnote 93 This is despite evidence suggesting that a growing majority of Nemuro residents, irrespective of whether they are former islanders and their descendants or not, are increasingly becoming amenable to variations of the two plus alpha formula for resolving the territorial dispute. This stance is puzzling when we consider the composition of Chishima Renmei's board – the body that presumably plays an important role in crafting the organization's policy. Of the 24 board members, only three have links to Etorofu – the island over which it is possible Japan could renounce sovereignty according to one variation of the two plus alpha formula, the ‘50–50’ land area proposal. Ten either hail from or have links with Habomai, nine with Kunashiri, and only one with Shikotan.Footnote 94 One could surmise that this position is due to the board comprising fervent believers of the injustice of the Russian occupation and the legitimacy of the Japanese claim to the Northern Territories. If this is indeed the case, it demonstrates the effectiveness of state socialization in Japan. Some cynics, meanwhile, suggest that the Northern Territories dispute has become a business and hardline participants in the NTRM benefit financially from state largesse. It is therefore convenient for these actors that the territorial dispute remain unresolved.Footnote 95 In any case, one must not overlook the fact that while it is closer to the grassroots than Hoppō Dōmei and especially Hoppō Kyōkai, Chishima Renmei is subject to intrusive monitoring by the state and its local arm, upon which it is financially dependent, and also operates under the threat of possible sanction. The three organizations play a leading role in a bureaucratized movement that, in the current politico-institutional milieu, seems unlikely to become a source of pressure for change in Tokyo's Northern Territories policy.
Conclusion
This paper has shed light on a relatively unexplored aspect of the Northern Territories dispute by examining the views of those with arguably the strongest socioeconomic and psychological ties to the disputed islands in Japan: residents of Nemuro. The NTRM began in this northern periphery as a movement of divergent attitudes but was soon coopted by a Japanese government that found it politically expedient to pursue an intransigent four islands or nothing claim within the broader context of superpower confrontation. Local opposition to this policy existed in some quarters but was largely kept in check by generous financial inducements from the state, as well as the misguided belief that the Soviet Union and its successor the Russian Federation, needing Japanese economic assistance, would sooner or later be compelled to make territorial concessions. However, as a result of demographic and socioeconomic changes that have become more pronounced over the last two decades, dissent is slowly emerging in Nemuro. There are signs, manifested in survey and non-survey data, of an emerging disjuncture between national policy, which aims for the return of all four islands, and local aspirations, which appear to favour variants of a more moderate two islands plus alpha approach to resolving the territorial dispute.
This disjuncture has both theoretical and policy implications. Theoretically, civic groups, some of which were initially designed to articulate and aggregate local interests, are finding themselves increasingly less representative of public opinion in Nemuro. These groups comprise an irredentist movement that has been bureaucratized and is closely linked to the state through a series of financial and personnel administration mechanisms. This is congruent with a politico-institutional argument forwarded by Pekkanen and others that emphasizes the impact of a state's regulatory regime in shaping civil society organizations and their behaviour.
From a policy perspective, signs of support in Nemuro for a two plus alpha formula – either a reversion of three islands (Habomai, Shikotan, and Kunashiri) or 3.5 islands (these three islands plus half of Etorofu) – suggests that the groundwork for a possible Japanese compromise is slowly being established and that Tokyo's hands are not as tied by public opinion, which at a national level is probably not as uncompromising on the four island claim, as some claim.Footnote 96 While the process of public opinion mobilization and socialization in Japan has been thorough, it is not completely irreversible. Nevertheless, this article recognizes that the state's cooptation of key groups comprising the NTRM does make it difficult to envisage these bodies acting as potential agents of change in government policy at present. The prospects of resolving this longstanding dispute also depend, of course, on Russia's preparedness to make its own compromises. In recent years, Moscow has indicated a willingness to return Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, as stipulated in the 1956 Joint Declaration, but has retracted this offer in the face of a Japanese refusal to consider anything but the four islands. Therefore, a gap still exists between the level of compromise both sides are willing to make in order to conclude a peace treaty. Without a political commitment at the highest levels in Japan and Russia to bridge this gap and, in a three or 3.5 island formula, settle for what would still represent, in this author's opinion, a difficult yet tolerable ‘win’ (positive sum) for both sides, the anomalous state of bilateral relations is likely to continue indefinitely.
About the author
Brad Williams is a visiting fellow in the Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore, where he teaches comparative politics and international relations (with a geographic focus on Northeast Asia). He is the author of Resolving the Russo-Japanese Territorial Dispute: Hokkaido-Sakhalin Relations (Routledge 2007) and the co-editor of Japan, Australia and Asia-Pacific Security (Routledge 2006). He has also published several articles in internationally-refereed journals such as Europe–Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Pacific Review, Japan Forum and Journal of Asian Studies.
