The Moscow Times recently reported that Russia and Japan had agreed to expand their bilateral nuclear cooperation during Prime Minister Putin’s visit to Tokyo. The deal, which still awaits ratification in the Diet, will supply uranium fuel to Japanese nuclear reactors, enable Japanese firms to mine uranium in Russia, and may pave the way for the joint construction of a uranium-enrichment plant in “Japan or another country.”
Japan and Russia, still technically at war with each other, have much to gain from this nuclear agreement. With this agreement in hand, Japan is taking another step towards diversifying its energy sources, while Russia obtains access to Japanese technology (and money) in its efforts to expand its nuclear industry and to develop, presumably, Siberia. But the inclusion in the agreement of the phrase “Japan or another country,” and what the phrase may mean for the future of security in Northeast Asia, is the most intriguing aspect of this piece of news.
Following the Six-Party Talks, the most important contemporary security framework in Northeast Asia, was an exhausting, and at times depressing, travail. Historical antagonism, ideological imperatives, and a changing regional balance of power—not to mention, the threat of a nuclear calamity in the region—made for a volatile background to these important negotiations. An intransigent North Korea, a South Korea increasingly tired of its Northern cousins, a distracted America, an indifferent Russia, a skeptical Japan, and a China disinclined to perturb its relations with North Korea have left the Talks in tatters, exposing Northeast Asia to greater strategic uncertainty and, possibly, catastrophic danger.
Apart from South Korea, Japan stands the most to lose should the Korean Question not be resolved peacefully. Yet, Japan also seemed to be the most uncomfortable and reluctant country in the Six-Party Talks and one that is diplomatically weakest from its failure to mend fences properly and seriously with its neighbors. The combination of Japan’s failed attempts to engage other Northeast Asian countries meaningfully and its resultant lack of diplomatic clout in the region has put Japan in the unenviable position of bearing the brunt of North Korea’s capricious provocations with little ability to either forestall those provocations or score political points from them. As a result, Japan adopted a standoff position throughout the Six-Party Talks and appeared leery of any development, positive or negative, that resulted from the Talks.
Although the danger of reading too much into the inclusion of the phrase in the Russo-Japanese agreement remains great, the phrase, and the agreement, may provide another opportunity to nudge Northeast Asia’s security situation in a positive direction. Regardless of whether it was serendipity or the allure of cold, hard cash that pulled Japan into the emerging Russocentric nuclear architecture of Northeast Asia, the country’s nuclear agreement with Russia can be used to lay a stronger foundation for future regional security discussions, precisely because the nuclear issue is often at the center of discussions about Northeast Asia’s security. The phrase has the potential to map how Japan can contribute to a peaceful resolution of the Korean Question without instigating too much suspicion in the region’s capitals. Having concluded a similar nuclear arrangement with China in 2008, Russia—which, it must be noted, has historically maintained, like China, a reasonably good relationship with North Korea—is perhaps the best country to include Japan in the region’s engagement with North Korea on the nuclear issue. The successful negotiation of the 2008 deal and the fact that Russia, not the United States, is the country to bring Japan in on the nuclear cooperation may allay China’s and South Korea’s traditional distrust of Japan, although the question whether the United States would accept this incipient arrangement is potentially, as always, the most important.
Notwithstanding whether North Korea’s present petulance portends the absolute end of the Six-Party Talks, the Russo-Japanese nuclear deal may provide another diplomatic block available for the construction of a peaceful resolution to the North Korean Question. For now, not all hopes for a more secure future are lost in Northeast Asia.
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