Page 35 - The Economist20171214

The Economist December 16th 2017 Asia 35
2 Still, the results signal a likely return to prime minister, K.P. Oli, iskeen to see great- One ofthe last acts ofthe outgoinggovern-
relative political stability after a decade of er engagement with China. He was prime ment was to scrap a big Chinese-backed
war and another decade of disruptive po- minister in 2015 when India appeared to hydroelectric scheme. The new govern-
litical jockeying. The constitution of 2015 side with Madhesi agitators who were at- mentislikelyto presentChina with a wish-
does not allow a no-confidence motion for temptingto blockade Kathmandu, the cap- list of investments, including airports,
two years, and the new government looks ital. In response Mr Oli signed trade and highways, dams and a high-altitude rail-
likely to survive a full five-year term. The transit agreements with China. In the elec- way to connect Kathmandu to Tibet. This
communist coalition plans to unite into a tion he projected himself as a man able to passage through the Himalayas would
single partyassoon asthe rightdeals are in stand up to a domineeringIndia. make Nepal less dependent on India. But
place. These include finding appropriate For years Nepalis have envied India’s Nepalese democrats worry that Chinese
posts for the five former prime ministers in and China’s rapid economic growth and politics will steam in along with the mon-
the coalition who won seats, and deciding tried to woo investment from them. Politi- ey, encouraging Nepal’s rulers to mimic
the compositionofthe sixleftistprovincial cal turbulence has stymied many projects. China’s approach to dissent. 7
governments.
The elections also reveal the divide
created by the new constitution. The only The Kuril Islands
provincethatdidnotturnleft,numbertwo
(provincial names and capitals have yet to Still cranky after all these years
be decided), waseasilywon byparties rep-
resenting the Madhesis, lowland people
seekingto change a political system said to
favour the country’s highlands. Their pro-
mise to fight hard to amend the constitu- Kurilsk and Nemuro
tion, as well as furtherdemands forgreater Japan’s plan to resolve a 70-year-olddisputewith Russia is fatallyflawed
local rights from other parts of the multi-
lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-religious USSIAN sounds familiar to Yoi Hase-
500 km Kamchatka
country, could augur trouble, unless the Rgawa, an 85-year-old resident of Ne-
communists shed their victors’ hubris to muro, a small port on the north-eastern tip RUSSIA
accommodate the Madhesis and other of Japan. She still remembers a few words Sea of
marginalised people. from when she was 13, and lived on the Okho tsk
Internationally, the communist govern- nearby island of Etorofu. Japan had just Sakhalin
ment will have to refine its diplomatic surrendered to the Allies, ending the sec-
skills to keep both its giant neighbours ond world war, but Stalin, who had only
happy. Ties with India are stronger thanks declared war on Japan seven days before BOUNDARY
CLAIMED
to an open border, which has fostered its capitulation, was eager to seize territory BY JAPAN I s l a n d s
trade and allowed millions ofNepalese la- Roosevelt and Churchill had promised to PA C I F I C
bourers to find work there. But the new the Soviet Union. He sent troops to occupy Kunashir Kurilsk K u r i l OCEAN
government will be the friendliest to Chi- the southern Kuril Islands, which Russia JAPAN Iturup/
na since that of Gyanendra Shah, Nepal’s hadacknowledgedasJapaneseterritoryin Hokkaido Etorofu
last king, who courted the Chinese au- 1855. Two years later, after Ms Hasegawa Nemuro DE FACTO BOUNDARY Tokyo
thoritieseagerlyin 2005 in an unsuccessful had picked up a little Russian, he deported
effort to prolonghis dictatorship. the Kurils’ Japanese inhabitants. The re-
The person most likely to return as sulting territorial dispute mars Russo-Japa- “They did not take off their shoes,” she
nese relations to this day. says, “and they had automatic rifles.” She
Like his predecessors, Japan’s prime wasafraidaboutwhattheymightdotoher
minister, Shinzo Abe, would dearly like to 17-year-old sister. “My father had samurai
reclaim the Northern Territories, as Japan blood in him and told them that they
calls the southern Kurils (see map). But would have to kill both of them,” she re-
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is better calls. Butin the end theydid nothing worse
known for taking territory than giving it than steal some ofthe locals’ valuables.
back.TheJapanesegovernmenthopesthat Forthe next yearthe Japanese residents
engagementwith the newRussian inhabit- and the Russian invaderslived nextto each
ants ofthe islands and investment by Japa- other. Old Japanese ladies helped to deliv-
nese firms in what is, after all, a poor and er the babies of the Russian women who
isolated corner of Russia, may gradually had come to join their husbands in the lo-
soften local hostility to anything that cal garrison. The Russianssupplied the Jap-
seems like a territorial concession. Mr Abe anese with clothes and some food. Ms
has a personal stake in this charm offen- Hasegawa would walk three kilometres to
sive: his father and grandfather, as foreign a place where Russians lived to exchange
minister and prime minister respectively, potatoes forsugar.
tried to secure the Kurils’ return. Some sort Then, in 1947, ships arrived and took all
of deal (“shared sovereignty” is a phrase the Japanese away. They were allowed to
bandiedaboutalotinTokyo)would fulfil a pack one bag and given 24 hours to get on
cherished goal and remove a huge impedi- board. Many families buried their belong-
ment to closerties. ings in the garden, expecting to be back
Ms Hasegawa has been a beneficiary of soon to retrieve them. The boatstook them
Mr Abe’s diplomatic overtures—but it has to Sakhalin, a nearby island once divided
been a long time coming. Soviet troops ar- between Russia and Japan but by then
A big day for Marx and Lenin rived at her house in late August 1945. wholly in the hands of the Soviet army.