Japan-Russia Relations in the backdrop of Russia-Ukraine War: Evolving Japanese Foreign Policy

Authors(1) :-Arpan Banerjee

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Moscow’s repeated transgressions of international norms beginning with the flagrant invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and more recently the outright invasion of a sovereign state, threatened (according to many prominent geo-political commentators) to sound the death knell of the liberal international order. From energy security to weapons trading, the world now appears seemingly divided into camps reminiscent of the Cold War era. In this scenario, Japan, being the only state having long-standing territorial disputes with both Russia and China, finds itself in a catch-22 situation. While Kremlin’s unilateral actions in Ukraine has further bolstered Beijing’s irredentist claims on Taiwan and the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, Russia’s increasing isolation has pushed Moscow into Beijing’s orbit, causing a severe strategic headache for Tokyo.

Authors and Affiliations

Arpan Banerjee
Research Scholar, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

Kuril Islands, Energy Security, Neorealism, Russkiy Mir, Pacifism, Eurasian Alliance, G7, Innate Constructivism, Cold War, Chinese Assertiveness.

  1. Bukh, Alexander. I︠a︡ponii︠a︡: Nat︠s︡ionalʹnai︠a︡ identichnostʹ I vneshni︠a︡i︠a︡ politika rossii︠a︡ kak Drugoe i︠a︡ponii = Japan’s national identity and foreign policy: Russia as Japan’s “other.” Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2012.
  2. Mohri,Tadaatsu. “The Japan-Russia Border and Stability in Northeast Asia: Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Territorial Disputes.” Washington DC: Brookings. (2011).
  3. Schnelle,Diana. “Japan’s energy mix after the Ukraine crisis”. East Asia Forum. May 10,2022. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/05/10/japans-energy-mix-after-the-ukraine-crisis/ (accessed August 11,2023)
  4. Barrash,Ike. “Russia’s Militarization of the Kuril Islands.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. September 27,2022. https://www.csis.org/blogs/new-perspectives-asia/russias-militarization-kuril-islands (accessed August 11,2023)
  5. Chikahito,Harada. “Whither Japan’s Russia Policy? Lessons from the Invasion of Ukraine”. Nippon.com. June 7,2022. https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a08105/ (accessed August 11,2023)
  6. Pollmann,Mina. “NPT Conference Collapse, Military Drills Further Strain Japan-Russia Relations”. The Diplomat. September 7,2022. https://thediplomat.com/2022/09/npt-conference-collapse-military-drills-further-strain-japan-russia-relations/ (accessed August 13,2023)
  7. Chang, Felix K. “Japan-Russia Relations After the Russian-Ukrainian War”. Foreign Policy Research Institute. June 8,2022. https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/06/japan-russia-relations-after-the-russian-ukrainian-war/. (accessed August 11,2023).
  8. Malafaia, Thiago Corrêa. “Japanese International Relations: An Assessment of the 1971-2011 Period.” Brazilian Political Science Review 10, no. 1 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-38212016000100007.
  9. Ong, Graham Gerard. “Building an IR Theory with `Japanese Characteristics’: Nishida Kitaro and `emptiness’.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 33, no. 1 (2004): 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298040330010201.
  10. Hughes, Christopher W. “Japan’s ‘Resentful Realism’ and Balancing China’s Rise.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 9, no. 2 (2016): 109–50. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/pow004.
  11. Gross, Donald. The china fallacy: How the U.S. can benefit from China’s rise and avoid another Cold War. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013.
  12. Singh, Bhubhindar. “Japan’s Responses to China’s Rise: Soft Balancing in Southeast Asia.” Asian Security 18, no. 1 (2021): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2021.1942849.
  13. Inoguchi, Takashi. “Are There Any Theories of International Relations in Japan?” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 369–90. https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcm015.
  14. Iwashita, Akihiro. “The Russian War in Ukraine : An Invasion Named “Liberation.” Eurasia Border Review 12, no. 3 (2022): 3-10. http://hdl.handle.net/2115/87671
  15. Rabson, Steve. “Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States by Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu.” The Journal of Japanese Studies 40, no. 2 (2014): 427–31. https://doi.org/10.1353/jjs.2014.0052.
  16. McCormack, Gavan. “Japan's "Positive Pacifism": Issues of Historical Memory in Contemporary Foreign Policy.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 20, no. 2 (2014): 73-91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24590975

Publication Details

Published in : Volume 6 | Issue 3 | May-June 2023
Date of Publication : 2023-06-30
License:  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Page(s) : 62-73
Manuscript Number : GISRRJ236310
Publisher : Technoscience Academy

ISSN : 2582-0095

Cite This Article :

Arpan Banerjee, "Japan-Russia Relations in the backdrop of Russia-Ukraine War: Evolving Japanese Foreign Policy ", Gyanshauryam, International Scientific Refereed Research Journal (GISRRJ), ISSN : 2582-0095, Volume 6, Issue 3, pp.62-73, May-June.2023
URL : https://gisrrj.com/GISRRJ236310

Article Preview