Photo/Illutration Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of their meeting in Singapore in November 2018. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A country cannot win the trust of other nations or expand its international presence if it pursues a double-tongued diplomacy marked by a lack of commitment to principles and creating a veneer of friendship to suit the occasion.

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi visited the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania earlier this month. After achieving independence from the Soviet Union, the three countries joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union.

They are in bitter confrontation with Russia.

In a July 3 news conference, Motegi said relations between the Baltic states and Russia are “extremely similar” to those between Japan and China.

Referring to China’s aggressive naval expansion and its crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, Motegi said the Baltic states, which face security threats posed by Russia, should be able to understand and sympathize with Japan’s concerns about China’s behavior. He added that the three nations had voiced their “strong agreement” with his view.

If Motegi’s visit helped make the three countries better understand Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” initiative, as he claims, it is a meaningful achievement.

If Tokyo talks about similarities between threats posed by China and Russia, however, it also needs to express sympathy with the Baltic states’ concerns about Moscow’s behavior. Japan should clearly criticize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its crackdown on anti-government forces at home.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turned a blind eye to Russia’s violent actions and bent over backward to build close personal ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While imposing sanctions on Russia in concert with the other members of the Group of Seven leading industrial powers, Abe established a new Cabinet post in charge of economic cooperation with Moscow. Abe’s foreign policy toward Russia was riddled with inconsistencies that equated to duplicitous diplomacy.

Abe’s primary goal in his strategy for dealing with Russia was to settle the long-running territorial dispute over the Northern Territories, or a chain of islands off Hokkaido, to sign a peace treaty with Russia. Abe said he also tried to improve Japan’s relationship with Russia to keep it from joining hands with China.

But his opportunist approach failed to work with the Kremlin and only caused bilateral talks over the territorial dispute to fall through. Beijing and Moscow have been strengthening their cooperation to counter Washington’s pressure.

Abe is fairly and squarely to blame for the current unhealthy state of the Japan-Russia relationship, which makes it difficult for Tokyo to hit back at Moscow’s criticism about Japan’s security treaty with the United States.

This month, Russia enacted a law aimed at silencing criticism about the Soviet Union’s annexation of the three Baltic states and the secret deal between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany to divide Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, which set the stage for World War II.

Moscow’s move to sanctify the acts of Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator, echoes Putin’s argument to justify the Soviet Union’s seizure of the Northern Territories in the closing days of the war. The law has serious implications for Japan as well.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, however, has taken no action to review Japan’s diplomacy toward Russia and has pledged to carry on Abe’s policy. Suga has retained the Cabinet post responsible for economic cooperation with Russia.

Suga should not continue the misguided policy toward Russia adopted by the previous administration. This is the time to make a tough-minded re-evaluation of Japan’s negotiations with Russia.

Tokyo needs to speak frankly about its concerns over Russia’s behavior toward its neighbors and its dismal human rights records. Otherwise, its “valued-based diplomacy” will never sound convincing to the international community.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 8

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