Yujiro Taniyama, Japan Broadcasting.net Editor in Chief
Abe must ignore Putin’s bogus
Beer belly Vladimir has done it once again.
The Russian president in imploring Japan’s Abe Shinzo to invest on his soil to boost its struggling economy.
But he did it through an irrational way yesterday at the Eastern Economic Forum currently being held in Vladivostok. That’s right, Putin proposed a ‘peace treaty without preconditions’.
What a disingenuous, unfeasible intimidation against Tokyo.
Abe must repudiate this deplorable offer without question.
I emphatically claim so based on three Soviet transgressions of the past.
The first is Stalin’s blatant violation of a peace treaty.
On April 13, 1941, Japan signed a non-aggression pact with then Soviet Union which was valid for five years till April 1946. Despite the fact, after Truman dropped the notorious indiscriminate bomb on innocent men, women and children in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Stalin immediately ordered his men to prepare for the invasion of Japanese territories in which he began three days later.
Russians attacked Japan’s Chishima Islands (Kuril Is), tortured and raped women and occupied it all including the northern territories of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Habomai and Shicotan.
No matter how the Russians self justify themselves, this is a clear violation of a bilateral pact. So when Putin said yesterday “a peace treaty without preconditions” – it meant that Russia has no intention to return the four islands in which Tokyo claims its sovereign rights.
Putin de facto kicked Abe in the crotch without warning.
Boy is he a typical Russian.
The second reason why the Russian President’s “sham peace treaty” offer ought to be neglected is due to a Soviet war crime hardly known to the western world today.
An abduction and enslavement of over six-hundred-thousand Japanese prisoners for 10 YEARS AFTER WW2 ENDED. They were sent to -40℃ freezing Siberia and elsewhere to construct railroads and various infrastructures.
The actual figure of the fatalities is yet unclear, but an American historian William F. Nima estimated 254,000 died and 93,000 missing.
This is not only a clear violation of international law but also an egregious war crime. Ex-Soviet/Russian governments have never given an official apology or compensation which inevitably has deepened Japanese antipathy towards the Kremlin in the past years.
And now we have Putin proposing a “peace treaty without preconditions?”
Give me a break, give me a Vodka fellas.
Thirdly, and lastly.
I simply don’t trust the Russians.
The Slav women are beautiful as they are indeed, but Kremlin stole Crimea in 2014, allegedly assassinated its former spy agent with deadly agent polonium, and the recent Novichok poisoning in the U.K. And Putin’s perpetual “don’t underestimate our nukes” bravado is more than repugnant. Therefore I believe my apprehension of Russia’s illicit occupation of Japan’s northern territories off the coast of Hokkaido (hit by a devastating earthquake last week) and its arrogant ‘peace treaty’ narrative surely is not baseless.
I mean, how can you forge a trustworthy relationship with a country whose allegedly infiltrated U.S democratic elections?! Moscow mule surely tastes good, but Moscow itself is nothing but a loose cannon far more than Trump to my understanding.
Viable approach is indispensable of course, but I am quite precarious on how Abe in the recent years has been contained by this beer belly loose cannon, having met more than 22 times in the recent years. Abe boasts that they call each other by their first names, but what’s hilarious at the same time deplorable is that Putin downplays the Japanese PM occasionally. In December 2016 meeting in Nagato (Abe’s home territory), the loose cannon was two hours forty minutes late.
That’s pretty humiliating for the host.
There’s no denying the fact that Putin is a formidable adversary like China’s Xi.
Foes and allies.
I understand Abe’s ambition to mark a historical legacy regarding the ‘4 disputed islands’, but he’s got to bear in mind that acting like a friend and being a friend is a totally different thing.
“Vladimir-Shinzo” sentimental indulgence may result in an irretrievable damage.
You may as well call it a “Novichok Sushi”.
