Page 36 - The Economist20171214

36 Asia The Economist December 16th 2017
2 After a few months in barracks there, they time when America’s commitment to the The Russian government has declared
were sent to Hokkaido, Japan’s northern- region seems less certain. Iturup a special economic zone, with tax
most island. But Russia has sold China advanced of- breaks for investment. The governor of the
In June a boat took Ms Hasegawa back fensive weapons, including SU-35 jets. Mr region, Oleg Kozhemiaka, says the Kurils
to the island she left 70 years ago, now re- Putin seems to get on well with Xi Jinping, are open to Japanese investors. He has lob-
named Iturup. The village where she was his Chinese counterpart. “We need to get bied successfully for the easing on Iturup
born has long been abandoned. Only Russia to our side, or at least to drive a of border-zone regulations that make it es-
bears live there now, the locals say. Most wedge between Russia and China,” a se- pecially hard forforeigners to do business.
Japanese buildings were burnt or demol- niorJapanese diplomat says. But the less onerous rules apply only in
ished in the1970s. Streetsand villages have The Kurils are a secondary issue, but Kurilsk and a few other spots, not includ-
been renamed. A few gravestones are the not to Mr Abe. “It is his personal project. ingthe island’s port. That makes them next
only obvious sign of the long Japanese The majority of the Japanese people, par- to useless. When a group ofJapanese busi-
presence on the island. ticularly the young ones, don’t care about nessmen visited in June, they were not al-
The main town, Shana, has become Ku- it,” says a Japanese analyst. lowed to deviate from a pre-agreed itiner-
rilsk. It is a settlement of just 1,500 people MrAbe hasmetMrPutin 20 times, with ary. It does not help that fishing, the port
who mostly live in Soviet-era apartment the Northern Territories always on the and most other businesses on the islands
blocks. It was in one ofthose blocks on the agenda. During a summit a year ago he are in the hands ofa single oligarch, who is
unpaved Lenin Komsomol street that Ms handed Mr Putin a letter from former resi- presumably not eagerto see competition.
Hasegawa metTatiana Vasilieva, who is 63. dents of the Kurils. “We don’t have time… Mr Kozhemiaka says the government is
Like Ms Hasegawa, Ms Vasilieva was born Wewanttoreturntotheislands…We want planning to invest in tourism, to capitalise
on Iturup. Her father was one ofthe Soviet to go and return freely,” they wrote. Ac- on the islands’ stunning scenery. But it is
soldiers who came to “liberate it” in 1945. cording to Mr Abe, Mr Putin read the letter not just the lack of roads, accommodation
Her family lived in the village where Ms and agreed right away to ease travel to the or communications that puts Japanese
Hasegawa once sold potatoes. Ms Vasi- islands for former residents and to initiate touristsoff. Asa group ofJapanese journal-
lieva believes the Kurils must remain Rus- various joint development schemes. In re- ists politely told officials in Sakhalin, “No-
sian,butshefeelssorryfortheformerJapa- turn for being allowed to bring elderly Jap- body smiles here.”
nese residents. “Deportation wasa tragedy anese to visit the graves of their relatives, Japan’s overtures do not seem to have
for them, as it would have been for me,” Japan regularly ferries Russians living in engendered much goodwill. Natalia Bes-
she says. the Kurils to Hokkaido, for a holiday at Jap- krovnaia, a managing editor of Red Light-
At the end of her encounter with Ms anese taxpayers’ expense. house, a local newspaper, who hasbeen on
Hasegawa, Ms Vasilieva hugged the old a free trip to Japan, says, “I am against any
lady for a long time. “We have different na- Oneshipaweek Japanese presence in the Kuril Islands. We
tionalities, but the same homeland,” she The Kurils, home to just 20,000 people, are should not let them in. I am against this
told her. “I was deeply moved,” Ms Hase- extremely isolated. There is one ferry a visa-free exchange. They want to grab our
gawa recalled. She has little interest in geo- week to Sakhalin, the main link to the out- resources.” The realisation of Japan’s eco-
politics: “I just want to go there any time I side world. The few flights in and out are nomic superiority makes young people
feel like it, stay there for a week or so, and prohibitively expensive. Internet access is fearful of Japanese investment. “If they
become friends with the people who live scarce and mobile reception sporadic. come here, we would be theirservants and
there now.” There are only 13km of paved roads. To get I don’t want that,” says Ms Vasilieva’s
The Japanese government has a differ- around the islands, locals tend to drive daughter. Elena Kairova, the curatorof a lo-
ent view of Russia from its Western allies. along the beach—something that can be cal museum, echoes her misgivings: “Why
They regard it as a disruptive force, to be done only at low tide. To induce people to do we need the Japanese here? So that they
fended off, whereas Japan sees a potential live there, Russian law requires employers can catch our fish? Let them catch their
counterweight to China’s growing power. to pay workers in the Kurils double what own fish. They are very cunning. They
Thatisanespeciallydesirableattributeata they would earn on the mainland. wantto open theirrestauranthere. Why do
we need that? We can eat our Russian
food,” she says.
The siege mentality is exploited and
fanned by the authorities. Last month the
army said it would install anti-ship mis-
silesin the Kurils. Focusingon imagined ex-
ternal threats diverts attention from the lo-
cal elites, who show scant regard for the
well-beingofthe islanders.
A recent lecture for schoolchildren in
Kurilsk on the history of Russo-Japanese
relations ended with the second world
war, as if time had stopped in 1945. The
emotional lecturer swelled with anger as
she displayed picturesofJapanese soldiers
skewering babies during the invasion of
China and fought back tears as she de-
scribed the heroism of Soviet soldiers dur-
ing their brief offensive against the Japa-
nese. Japan’s quest to regain the Kurils, she
said, was a hopeless fantasy: “I vote for Pu-
tin every year, and the only thing that will
stop me doing so would be if he gave up
How the Russians remember 1945 the islands.” 7