Human dimension of the Japanese policy toward Russia in the Age of Changes (1985 - 2001): Ideas, Activities and Struggle between Nagatacho, “Russian School” of the MOFA and “Suzuki Group”

Abstract

This book describes major aspects of the Soviet/Russian-Japanese negotiations in the last decades of the 20th century and focuses on the ideas and activities of main persons – architects of bilateral relations in the background of reformatting the word order within and after the determination of Cold War. During last 15 years of the 20th century and the very beginning of 21st century there were taking place fundamental political and economic changes both in Russia and Japan, and these deep political and economic shifts contribute to intensification of the creative process and stimulated attempts to find a pragmatic basis for a constructive dialogue between former adversaries Russian and Japan. Main personalities are famous politicians, designers of Tokyo policy towards Russia in the “long 1990’s” –Nakasone Yasuhiro, Abe Shintaro, Suzuki Muneo, Hashimoto Ryutaro, Obuchi Keizo, Koizumi Junichiro – and Japanese diplomats of MOFA of Japan ‘Russian school’ - Togo Kazuhiko, Sato Masaru, Tamba Minoru, Kawato Akio. They were vigorously participating public bilateral negotiations, as well as involved meetings and activities in the behind-the-scenes actions of Japanese diplomacy in Russia. Mentioned persons widely used a great variety of negotiation tricks and were seeking for “communication channels”, deeply implemented “face-to-face diplomacy”, “sauna politics”, they formulated policy concepts regarding Russia and the post-Soviet countries, for example, “equilibrium balance”, “multilevel approach”, “Eurasian diplomacy”. Central figures of our research made a significant contribution to the negotiation process between Russia and Japan in the 1990s and to the formulation of the provisions of Boris Yeltsin and Hashimoto Ryutaro “Kawana Plan” (1998), “Moscow Declaration on Establishing a Creative Partnership between Japan and the Russian Federation” (1998) and “Irkutsk Statement by the Prime Minister of Japan and the President of the Russian Federation on the Continuation of Future Negotiations on the Issue of a Peace Treaty” (2001). These diplomats and politicians being pragmatically oriented were also deeply comprehended the experience of working with Russian people in Russia and had presented original ideas and views in numerous books, articles, memoirs, studies and interviews, trying to answer questions: What Russia is? How to deal with Russians? How to understand mysterious Russian soul? How to conduct constructive negotiations with the Russians.