He noted that this counterbalances the growing influence of Beijing.
Kawai also commented on Abe's visit to China last October. According to him, it was "strategic" because it helped to ease tensions between countries. However, as Kawai pointed out, Japan will not join the "One Belt – One Way" Chinese project.
The problem of the peace treaty between Russia and Japan
Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have for many years been obscured by the absence of a peace treaty. Japan claims the islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and Habomai, referring to the bilateral trade and border treaty of 1855. In 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a joint declaration in which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring Japan to Habomai and Shikotan after the conclusion of a peace treaty, and the fate of Kunashir and Iturup did not suffer.
The subsequent negotiations did not lead to anything, the peace treaty at the end of the Second World War was never signed. It is a point of view that arouses serious opposition from the United States, which threatened the fact that if Japan had agreed to transfer only two of the four islands, this would have influenced Okinawa's return to Japanese sovereignty (the United States). agreement on the return of Okinawa in Japan came into force in 1972 – Ed.). The position of Moscow is that the islands have become part of the USSR after World War II and Russia's sovereignty over them is beyond doubt.
In November, Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe reached an agreement to speed up negotiations on a peace treaty based on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese declaration.