A Study On Russia's Policy To Japan In The Context Of Russia Asia-Pacific Strategic Transformation

For a long time,although Russia is a big country in Europe and Asia,Russian diplomatic strategy has always been the focus of the West.After the financial crisis in 2008 and the outbreak of Russia and Georgia,Russia focused more on the Asia-Pacific region,the position of the Asia-Pacific region in the Russian diplomatic strategy has been improved.Because of the impact of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014,Russia fully accelerated the implementation of the Asia-Pacific strategy.The western-oriented diplomatic strategy gradually moved towards the trend that the East and the West were equally important to the development of the trend.After the implementation of the Asia-Pacific strategy,Russia has strengthened its relationship with traditional strategic partners such as China and India,and also paid more attention to Japan's significance and value in Russia's Asia-Pacific strategy.This paper attempts to analyze the objectives of Russia's policy toward Japan,state the progress of policy implementation,evaluate the effect of policy and judge the future trend of Russia-Japan relations in the context of Russia's Asia-Pacific strategy.This paper is divided into five chapters,the basic structure and the main contents are as follows:Chapter 1: Russia's Asia-Pacific strategic transformation: geographical background and strategic conception.Russia has turned to the Asia-Pacific region with profound and complex geopolitical,economic and security contexts.US Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy and the continued development of the Ukrainian crisis prompted Russia to tilt to the Asia-Pacific region.Compared to the European economic downturn,the rapid development of Asia-Pacific economy has increased the attractiveness to Russia.The risk of geopolitical security in the eastern region has promoted Russia's increasing emphasis on the security of the eastern region.Russia's Asia-Pacific strategy has relatively clear short-term goals and long-term objectives of the policy,its political goal is to become an important force in the Asia-Pacific region and highlight the status of Eurasian;economic goal is to accelerate the development of the eastern region economy and deep participation in Asia-Pacific economic integration;safety goal is to maintain the security of the eastern region and participate in remodeling the Asia-Pacific security pattern.Under the guidance of Russia's Asia-Pacific strategic objectives,Russia actively develops relations with major countries in the Asia-Pacific region,participates extensively in multilateral mechanisms,accelerates the development of the eastern region,actively participates in the integration process in the Asia-Pacific region and strengthens the military presence in the eastern region.Russia's Asia-Pacific strategy has made some progress and effectiveness.Chapter II: Russia's Policy towards Japan in the strategic transformation of Asia-Pacific.Before the strategic transformation of the Asia-Pacific region,Russia's policy toward Japan has experienced a process from passive response to active adjustment to pragmatism.Around Russia's strategic goal of Asia-Pacific,Russia has established Japan's position in its Asia-Pacific strategy,treating Japan as a co-builder of good-neighborly and friendly relations,an important partner for the revitalization of the eastern economy and an active participant in maintaining security in the Asia-Pacific region.In the context of the strategic transformation of Russia's Asia-Pacific strategy,Russia's policy towards Japan has a bilateral and regional level of the goal,the political goal is to improve and develop relations between Russia and Japan,to enhance bilateral relations,play a major role in expanding the influence of the Asia-Pacific region;the economic goal is to strengthen economic cooperation and promote the rapid development of the eastern region of Russia,expand economic circle of friends,to achieve economic partners diversification;the security goal is to conclude peace treaty,to maintain peace and stability in the eastern region,to seek security cooperation and safeguard the security of Northeast Asia.Chapter 3: An analysis of influencing factors about Russia's policy to Japan.The influencing factors about Russia's policy to Japan mainly include three levels,namely,system level,regional level and inter-state level.Each level has both the driving force for the development of Russia-Japan relations and the resistance factors that restrict the development of Russia-Japan relations.The driving factors include the common aspiration of the two countries to enhance the international status of the two countries in the process of multipolarization in the world,maintain the common demand of security in Northeast Asia and the mutual demand in the energy field.The resistance factors include the historical cognition differences between the two countries,strengthening the US-Japan alliance 's restriction on Russia-Japan relations,obstacles to territorial disputes in the north,bilateral weak economic cooperation basis and the lack of trust between the two countries.Under the interaction of dynamic factors and resistance factors,the combined effects of the macro-guidance of relations between major countries,the multidimensional control of regional geopolitical complex situation,the antagonism and discord of territorial disputes,and strongly complementary intercourse demands among economic entities constitute complex dynamic mechanism to promote the development and change of the relations between Russia and Japan.Chapter 4: Current progress and effect evaluation of Russia's policy towards Japan.Russia's policy toward Japan in different areas showed uneven characteristics.As president Medvedev visited the northern territory,Russia-Japan relations deteriorated seriously in the political arena.Putin flexibly used of the northern territorial policy in his third time as president,which led to Russia-Japan relations from twists and turns to the rapid warming.Russia continues to promote energy cooperation with Japan in the economic field,actively attracting Japanese investment.Russia and Japan set up foreign ministers and defense "2 +2" consultation mechanism in the field of security;they strengthened the North Korea nuclear issue on the position of coordination.By assessing the consistency and fit of the progress and policy objectives of Russia's policy towards Japan,we can see that the political objectives of Russia's policy towards Japan are realized in part,the economic objectives are basically realized and the security objectives are low.Chapter 5: The trend of Russia's policy to Japan and prospects for Russia-Japan relationsRussia's policy toward Japan will continue flexible and powerful diplomacy,so that it holds the dominance in the Russia-Japan relation.Russia's recent major goal of Japan's diplomacy is to implement the economic cooperation plan,deepen the Russian-Japanese economic cooperation,and speed up the process of resuming relations with the West with the help of Japan.There are a variety of theoretical possibilities for future relations between Russia and Japan.Russia and Japan are seriously deteriorating and the overall risk of regression is very low.There is a greater possibility of stagnation that Russia-Japan relation in the field of political arena and security and territory.The possibility of stagnation will be relatively small in the economic field.The possibility is relatively small that Russian and Japanese achieve the normalization of the relationship in theory.If Russia and Japan can achieve partial compromise in numerical order about economic cooperation and territorial issues the recent development trend of Russia-Japan relation is more likely to move towards a limited direction of normalization.