The Kurillian Knot: A History of Japanese-Russian Border Negotiations (review)

On the very first page in the preface of his latest book, The Kurillian Knot, Hiroshi Kimura lets the reader know right away that he is approaching the delicate issue of the long-standing Japanese-Russian territorial dispute from a strictly legal framework. Numerous works in years past have addressed the historical issues and the strategic wrangling between Moscow and Tokyo, but Kimura addresses the issue from a perspective that an international lawyer might take. The story is as follows: since 1945 Japan claims that first the Soviet Union and now Russia has illegally occupied four islands directly north of Hokkaido. The islands in question are Etorofu (Iturup in Russia), Kunashiri (Kunashir), Shikotan, and the Habomai group of islets. Moscow refers to these islands as the Southern Kurile Islands; Tokyo refers to them as the Northern Territories. Therein lies one of the major dilemmas and points of debate: are the islands geographically part of the Kurile Archipelago, or do they constitute a separate group of islands contiguous to and belonging to Hokkaido? Kimura—one of Japan's most esteemed Russian experts—provides wonderful detail in this short work on Japanese-Russian relations. Nevertheless, the territorial dispute remains an irritant that continues to bewilder and vex all sides concerned to this day.

In taking a legalistic perspective, Kimura makes frequent reference to the so-called Joint Compendium of Documents on the History of the Territorial Issue that the Japanese and Russian governments compiled in 2001 to help assess historical and legal issues as they arise in bilateral negotiations. Kimura provides translations of these 42 documents in an appendix. Among them are some of the oldest maps of the region in dispute. But in his historical-legal examination of the bilateral relationship (which focuses on the years 1945 to the present) Kimura cannot escape the emotional, historical, and social issues that have haunted the relationship for decades. No amount of legalese can erase the nonquantifiable and intangible factors that continue to plague relations even six and a half decades after the cessation of hostilities in World War II.

Kimura's book is divided into eight chronological chapters with an introduction and a conclusion that illustrate the fog and acrimony that hover over the territorial dispute. In fact, Kimura rightly begins his study with a description of the thick fog that permeates the region throughout the summer months, thus making these remote islands even harder to travel to in the months when winter storms do not make the seas surrounding the islands barely navigable. Kimura describes the earliest known recorded travels to the islands by both Japanese and Russian explorers. It is important to stipulate "Japanese and Russian" because in fact the Kurile Islands were long inhabited by Ainu, a group of indigenous fishermen whose genetic origins appear unique. They also inhabited northern Honshu Island, Hokkaido, and Sakhalin Island before the first contacts with the Japanese and Russian groups beginning more than six centuries ago. Cossack explorer Ivan Kozyrevskii made one of the earliest Russian-led voyages to the Kurile chain in 1711 (although the book mistakenly refers to the year 1771, p. 7). At this time both Japan and Russia were grappling with the concept of national borders, but from entirely different perspectives: Japan was in the middle of its period of isolation (sakoku) from the world; Russia was in the midst of its Petrine expansion to the west, south, and east.

The second chapter deals with the earliest historical contacts between the two governments. When Russian explorers came to the islands that are now under contention in the late eighteenth century, Japanese subjects were already living there (p. 16). Kimura thus scores the first point for Japan. He later reiterates this point in the chapter to make clear to the reader that Japan was there first (pp. 20–25). Later, the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda stipulated that the four islands now in dispute belonged to Japan, and...