Sakhalin Island: Shaping modern Japanese-Russian relations.

摘要

Despite the end of World War II and increased economic, social and cultural interaction throughout the world due to globalization, Japan and Russia are two powerful nations that are still at odds with one another. Without an official peace treaty or officially normalized relations, the two nations continue their dispute over the Southern Kuril Islands (known as the Northern Territories in Japan) to the northeast of Japan. Globalization has deeply affected both countries, however, when it comes to bilateral relations the two are still operating under a Cold War mentality. This thesis will address the issue of Japanese-Russian relations from a new perspective, focusing on the historical issues surrounding Sakhalin Island and how they have fundamentally affected Japanese-Russian relations since the end of World War II. Sakhalin Island played an extremely important role in colonial Japan's identity and this thesis will argue that the Japanese loss of Karafuto prefecture on southern Sakhalin Island---which received official naichi (homeland) status---to the Russians at the end of World War II, the subsequent co-habitation of the island and the eventual repatriation of all Japanese on Sakhalin Island had a much more profound and lasting effect on the Japanese relationship with Russia than the Northern Territories dispute and that these events were in fact the catalyst that shaped modern Japanese-Russian relations. With a global energy crisis looming and massive natural gas reserves recently found off the coast of Sakhalin, it is important for both Russia and Japan to understand the historical context that their relationship is based upon and work to improve bilateral relations.