Month: May 2024

Sapporo, Japan — Friction between Japan and Russia will likely escalate amidst the burgeoning Ukraine war, with the decades-long land conflicts showing no sign of thawing.

The Kremlin recently banned non-Russian vessels from waters near the Kuril Islands – known in Japan as the Northern Territories – currently occupied by Russia but claimed by Japan.

Tokyo saw the move as part of a series of Moscow threats after the recent security alliance between the United States and Japan.

There will be further retaliation from Moscow against Japan, according to James DJ Brown, professor of political science at Japan’s Temple University.

“The Putin regime feels an obligation to retaliate against what it regards as unfriendly actions by Japan,” Brown told VOA News. “Every time Tokyo does something more to assist Ukraine or to strengthen military ties with the United States, Moscow takes some measures to punish Japan.”

He said that as Japan is likely to introduce further sanctions to support Kyiv, Moscow’s retaliation is “all but guaranteed.”

The retaliatory measures aren’t just targeting Tokyo. A Russian man residing in the Kuril Islands was warned in March by a Russian court over his remarks to Japanese media that the territory had belonged to Japan in the past.

Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would visit the Kuril Islands, putting a damper on hopes for negotiations over sovereignty that both countries have attempted for decades.

Land disputes run deep

Russia and Japan’s competing claims over the four islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido – Japan’s second-largest island – date back to at least the 19th century. Near the end of WWII, the then Soviet Union started fully occupying the Kuril Islands.

Japan claimed that the Soviet Union incorporated them “without any legal grounds” and refused to sign a peace treaty. Tokyo said about 17,000 Japanese residents were deported from the islands. The Russian public, Brown said, view the Kuril Islands as reward for the sacrifices of the Soviet people during the war.

The two countries have held talks off and on for decades to reach an agreement but to no avail.  

The conflict eased in 2016, when the two countries agreed on joint economic activities including tourism projects on the islands, as well as visa-free visits for Japanese citizens.

Two years later, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed a split of the four islands, returning two islands to Japan, but Putin rejected it. Akihiro Iwashita, professor of the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Japan’s Hokkaido University, called this Putin’s “failed diplomacy” toward Japan that eventually led to Tokyo taking a more hardline approach against Moscow.

“If Putin had shown goodwill to Japan, negotiating with Shinzo Abe for the peace treaty, Japan would not have taken a critical position over the Ukraine war,” Iwashita told VOA News. “Remember Japan’s hesitation to sanction Russia after its 2014 aggression against Ukraine? Japan now does not need to restrain its policy towards Russia.”

Tensions over the Ukraine war

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow put all peace treaty talks with Japan on hold and suspended the previously agreed economic activities and visa-free visits to the islands for Japanese citizens. This followed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s siding with Ukraine in the war, with Kishida calling the suspension “extremely unjust.”

Japan has been providing assistance to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, including supplying Patriot air defense systems last year. Kishida was the first Japanese leader to visit an active war zone, to show solidarity with Ukraine and the U.S.

Moscow warned of “grave consequences” for its ties with Tokyo. That did not stop Japan from pledging $4.5 billion in aid to war-torn Ukraine last December, including $1 billion for humanitarian purposes.

Japan’s aid to Ukraine has affected residents of Hokkaido. A survey conducted by Hokkaido authorities and the Hokkaido Shimbun last year showed that over half of the respondents near the Russia-Japan border in the north felt a negative effect of the Ukraine war on local life, including reduction in fishing activities and trade, and human contacts.

In October last year, Russia banned all seafood imports from Japan, citing Tokyo’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“Moscow used the pretense of the threat of radiation from treatment water from the Fukushima plant. In reality, it was an attempt by Moscow to punish Japan for its support for Ukraine,” Brown said.

In the survey, many also said they cannot foresee a solution for the northern territories, but a majority said they support Tokyo’s policy against Russia.

Both experts said Russia does not currently pose a military threat to Japan. Brown said, “the Russian military is present on the disputed islands, but their role is to defend the Sea of Okhotsk, which is important as a bastion for Russian nuclear submarines. It does not have the capabilities on the islands to launch an amphibious assault on Hokkaido.”

Peace treaty negotiations are expected to continue to be frozen for the foreseeable future, despite Kishida’s calls for their resumption in February this year.

“Kishida is displaying diplomatic goodwill towards Russia, but with no expectations of it being reciprocated…There is little room to fill the interest gap between the two,” said Iwashita.

He added that Russia’s pressure on Japan “will not lead to any results.”
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PENTAGON — The U.S. Army has confirmed that a U.S. soldier was arrested last week during an unauthorized visit to the Russian far eastern port city of Vladivostok, one of two recently detained Americans in Russia.

Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said Tuesday Staff Sergeant Gordon C. Black had been stationed in South Korea and signed out on permanent change of station leave on April 10 en route to Fort Cavazos, Texas. Instead of returning to the continental United States, Black flew through China to Vladivostok for “personal reasons.”

“Black did not request official clearance, and [the Department of Defense] did not authorize his travel to China and Russia, Smith added. 

U.S. officials told VOA he appeared to have traveled to Russia to see a woman whom he was romantically involved with.

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Tuesday the Army is investigating the incident and that any leave to Russia was “strictly prohibited,” according to the Department of Defense’s foreign clearance guide.

The White House said on Tuesday it confirmed “two separate cases” of U.S. citizens being detained in Russia, without identifying the second detainee.

Russian officials identified the second American as William Russell Nycum. He was detained 10 days ago in Moscow on petty hooliganism and alcohol charges, according to the Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti.

“The State Department is actively seeking consular access to both individuals, neither of whom are in Russia on behalf or in affiliation with the U.S. government,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

A Russian Ministry of Interior official informed the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on May 3 that Black was arrested a day earlier in Vladivostok for theft of personal property. Smith said the Army has no further information about the charge at this time and that Black will remain in a pretrial detention facility until his next hearing. 

According to RFE/RL a TikTok account of Black’s romantic partner, Vladivostok native Aleksandra Vashchuk, contains numerous videos of the couple together in South Korea. In one video, Black is wearing his U.S. Army fatigues and kisses the camera of a woman, presumably Vashchuk, as she speaks in Russian.

RFE/RL says Vashchuk refers to Black as her husband and affectionately as “pindos,” a Russian slang word for Americans that roughly translates to “Yankee punk.”

The Associated Press reports that unnamed officials say Black is accused of stealing from his “girlfriend.”

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Michael McCaul, said he is “deeply concerned” by reports of the detainment.

“Putin has a long history of holding American citizens hostage,” McCaul said in a post shared on X. “A warning to all Americans — as the State Department has said, it is not safe to travel to Russia.”

Among those being held are journalists Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL and Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, who have been detained on charges that they, their employers and their supporters reject as politically motivated. 

Also being held is Paul Whelan, who in 2020 was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, which he and the U.S. government have repeatedly rejected.
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Vienna — After “frank” discussions in France where President Emmanuel Macron pressed him on Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade disputes and human rights, China’s President Xi Jinping heads Tuesday to meet more pro-Beijing governments in Serbia and Hungary. 

Both countries have developed close ties with China and Russia under Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. 

China has been investing billions in both countries, with projects ranging from factories and mining to electric vehicles and a railway to connect their capitals — Belgrade and Budapest. 

China is both Hungary and Serbia’s largest trading partner outside the European Union.    

Xi arrives in Serbia for the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. The U.S. apologized for what it called a “mistaken” bombing that killed three Chinese nationals and injured 20.

Xi is expected to pay tribute to those killed at the site, which was turned into a Chinese cultural center. 

Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, told VOA, “Xi will probably try to stress the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] role in supporting stability and maybe suggest but not openly accuse the United States of being destabilizing and unnecessarily aggressive.”

But analysts say Xi’s visits to Serbia and Hungary also reflect Beijing’s limitations amid the ups and downs in China-EU relations.

Francesco Sisci, an Italian sinologist, told VOA, “It’s interesting that … China didn’t manage to secure more significant countries for Xi’s visit to Europe. It seems that China is having greater difficulties in its ties with European countries, and it has good ties with two governments who have also good ties with Moscow. That is — Europe is moving faster away from China as it sees it too close to Moscow.”

Like Beijing, both Serbia and Hungary have spoken against sanctions by the U.S. and EU on Moscow over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though Hungary has voted for them. 

Orban, despite leading a nation that is both a member of the EU and NATO, has friendly relations with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and held talks with him on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing in October. Hungary buys most of its fuel from Russia and, unlike other EU members, has shown no interest in stopping. Serbia is a candidate to join the EU. 

During the third Belt and Road International Cooperation Summit Forum, Xi also met with Orbán, the only EU leader who attended.

Dragana Mitrovic, a political science professor at the University of Belgrade, says those relations have sparked tensions with Hungary’s partners in the West.    

“In this moment of tense geopolitical competition and measuring economic and overall cooperation by strategic gains and losses, Hungary will continue to be under pressure from Brussels and Washington when pursuing cooperation with China,” she said to VOA.

While Hungary has benefited from billions in EU aid, Mitrovic notes Hungary is also one of the world’s biggest recipients of Chinese foreign investment.  

China’s BYD, which last year sold more electric vehicles than Tesla, plans to build its first plant in Europe in Hungary. By building cars inside the EU, Beijing could avoid the threat of tariffs on electric cars imported from China. 

  Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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LONDON — Chinese President Xi Jinping offered few concessions to his counterpart and host Emmanuel Macron as he wrapped up a two-day visit to France on Tuesday evening. Both presidents are seeking to mend ties on Xi’s first trip to Europe in five years, after relations were soured by trade disputes and Beijing’s support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

Macron invited Xi high into the Pyrenees Mountains, the home region of the French president’s maternal grandmother. Beneath snowy peaks shrouded in fog, the two leaders and their wives watched traditional dancers before dining on locally produced ham, lamb, cheese and blueberry pie.

French officials said the mountain trip on Tuesday would provide a chance for less- formal one-on-one discussions after the pomp and ceremony of Xi’s official state welcome in Paris on Monday.

Relations have worsened significantly since Xi last visited the region in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. Europe accuses Beijing of subsidizing industries that are undercutting its own companies in areas such as electric vehicles — but Macron told his Chinese guests that the European Union is not seeking to cut economic ties.

“Our shared objective is to continue our relationship,” Macron told delegates Monday at the Franco-Chinese Business Council in Paris. “There is no logic in decoupling from China. It’s a desire to preserve our national security, just as you do for your own. It’s a desire for mutual respect and understanding, and a desire to continue to open up trade, but to ensure that it is fully fair at all times, whether in terms of tariffs, aid or access to markets.”

China’s response

Xi made no immediate concessions, said analyst Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.

“Xi Jinping does not feel that China has an overcapacity issue. And he feels that the European position on Chinese EVs, for example, is unreasonable. But then of course he is also trying to engage with the French and potentially having a leading Chinese car manufacturer setting up facilities in France, as a kind of incentive to persuade that maybe it’s in France’s interest to engage with China and welcome Chinese EVs,” Tsang told VOA.

The trade relationship is tilted in Beijing’s favor, according to Nicholas Bequelin, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

China “has a major export economy towards Europe. The trade deficit in Europe is huge and growing. The de-risking or anti-subsidy policies that the European Union wants to put in place will take a lot of time — and because they affect the different countries in the European Union differently, it is very difficult to get to an agreement,” Bequelin said.

Russia threat

Europe faces the more pressing security threat of Russia, as the Kremlin’s forces slowly advance in eastern Ukraine. China has given Moscow diplomatic and economic support, despite Western appeals for Beijing to help end the illegal invasion.

Xi declared a “no limits” partnership when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing in February 2022, just days before the Kremlin’s tanks rolled across the Ukrainian frontier.

A recent U.S. assessment concluded that China is providing vital components such as machine tools and microelectronics that Russia is using to make weapons. Last year, trade between China and Russia hit a record $240 billion.

Speaking in Paris Monday, Xi rejected European accusations that China was aiding Russia’s war.

“China is neither the creator of the crisis, nor a party, a participant of the war. However, we didn’t just watch the fire burning across the river but have been playing an active role in achieving peace,” Xi told reporters.

Europe’s message

China’s claim is demonstrably false — and European leaders must take a tougher line, said analyst Igor Merheim-Eyre, a policy adviser at the European Parliament and research fellow at the University of Kent.

“We’ve already had [German] Chancellor Olaf Scholz, we’ve had Macron, we’ve had Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, we have [EU Commission] President [Ursula] von der Leyen, all making trips to Beijing and repeating the same message: that China should not be supporting Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. And in those two years, I see no change,” Merheim-Eyre told VOA.

“What they’ve really failed at is spelling out to Xi Jinping what will be the cost of China supporting Russia’s war of aggression — which it clearly is. I mean if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t already have four Chinese companies on the EU sanction list. And the circumventions are much broader than that,” he said.

Costs for China

Europe should make the costs clear, said analyst Tsang, because China’s “policy has always been one of declaring neutrality, supporting Putin and refusing to pay a price for that.”

Sanctioning Chinese companies that are supplying Russia’s military would likely be effective, he said. “For Xi Jinping, the important thing is that he stays in power, and that means he has to keep the Chinese economy on an even keel. Supporting Putin is a desirable thing — but fundamentally staying in power overrides the aspirational goal of undermining U.S. global preeminence and leadership.” Tsang said.

“Shared interest”

Von der Leyen on Monday urged Beijing to help end the war. “We agree that Europe and China have a shared interest in peace and security. We count on China to use all its influence on Russia to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” she said in a recorded video address.

But European leaders should be more realistic about Beijing’s ambitions, argued analyst Merheim-Eyre.

“I’m looking at my world map, and I’m trying to see where exactly this common interest lies. Because wherever I look, from Africa to the South China Sea to Ukraine, China is playing a destructive role, and I do not see common areas of interest in these matters.”

After visiting France, Xi was headed Tuesday for Serbia, a key Balkan partner in Beijing’s Belt and Road investment program. On Wednesday, Xi is due to travel to Hungary, his closest European ally and a longtime thorn in the side of EU unity on Russia and China policy.

VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this story.
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Amsterdam — German police on Tuesday broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University earlier in the day, the latest such action by authorities as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread across Europe.

The protesters had put up about 20 tents and formed a human chain around the tents. Most had covered their faces with medical masks and had draped kufiyah scarves around their heads, shouting slogans such as “Viva, viva Palestina.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Dutch police arrested about 125 activists as they broke up a similar pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam.

In Berlin, police called on the students via loudspeakers to leave the campus. Police could also be seen carrying some students away and some scuffles erupted between police officers and protesters.

Police used pepper spray against some of the protesters. The school’s administrators said in a statement that the protesters had rejected any kind of dialogue and they had therefore called in police to clear the campus.

“This form of protest is not geared towards dialogue. An occupation is not acceptable on the FU Berlin campus,” university president Guenter Ziegler said. FU is the abbreviation for Free University. “We are available for academic dialog — but not in this way.”

The administrators said some protesters attempted to enter rooms and lecture halls at Free University in order to occupy them. The protest organizers, which say they are made up of students from various Berlin universities and other individuals, had called on other students and professors to take part in the action, the university statement said.

In recent days, students have held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and Britain, following earlier protests at U.S. campuses.

Amsterdam police said on the social media platform X that their action was “necessary to restore order” after protests turned violent. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Video from the scene aired by national broadcaster NOS shows police using a mechanical digger to push down barricades and officers with batons and shields moving in, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents. Protesters had formed barricades from wooden pallets and bicycles, NOS reported.

The demonstrators occupied a small island at the university son Monday, calling for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.

After clearing the Amsterdam protest by early afternoon Tuesday, police closed off the area by metal fences. Students sat along the banks of a nearby canal. The school said in a statement that police ended the demonstration at its Roeterseiland campus overnight Tuesday “due to public order and safety concerns.”

“The war between Israel and Hamas is having a major impact on individual students and staff,” it said. “We share the anger and bewilderment over the war, and we understand that there are protests over it. We stress that within the university, dialogue about it is the only answer.”

In Finland, dozens of protesters from the Students for Palestine solidarity group set up an encampment outside the main building at the University of Helsinki, saying they would stay there until the university, which is Finland’s largest academic institution, cuts academic ties with Israeli universities.

In Denmark, students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Copenhagen, erecting about 45 tents outside the campus of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The university said students can protest but called on them to respect the rules on campus grounds.

“Seek dialogue, not conflict and make room for perspectives other than your own,” the administrators said on X.

The administration “cannot and must not express an opinion on behalf of university employees and students about political matters, including about the ongoing conflict” in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the statement said.

On their Facebook page, members of the activist group Students Against the Occupation said their attempts to talk to the administration over the past two years about withdrawing the school’s investments from companies with ties to activities in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories have been in vain.

“We can no longer be satisfied with cautious dialogue that does not lead to concrete action,” the group said.

In Italy, students at the University of Bologna, one of the world’s oldest universities, set up a tent encampment over the weekend to demand an end to the war in Gaza as Israel prepared an offensive in Rafah, despite pleas from its Western allies against it. Groups of students organized similar protests in Rome and Naples, which were largely peaceful.

More than a dozen tents were set up in a piazza named for a university student who fought against fascist rule during World War II. Some were decorated with Palestinian flags and a banner read “Student Intefadeh,” or “Student Uprising.”

In Spain, dozens of students have spent over a week at a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Valencia campus. Similar camps were set up Monday at the University of Barcelona and at the University of the Basque Country. A group representing students at Madrid’s public universities announced it would step up protests against the war in the coming days.

In Paris, student groups called for gatherings in solidarity with Palestinians later Tuesday.

On Friday, French police peacefully removed dozens of students from a building at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, after they had gathered in support of Palestinians.

On Tuesday, students at the prestigious institution, which counts French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and President Emmanuel Macron among its alumni, were seen entering the campus unobstructed to take exams as police stood at the entrances.

Protests took place last week at some other universities in France, including in Lille and Lyon. Macron’s office said police had been requested to remove students from 23 sites on French campuses.
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