Interview with He Sishen | The "Two Liberal Democratic Parties" Behind Abe and Kishida's Different Adjustments to Russia

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on February 24, Japan has become the most active country in East Asia to respond to the call of the United States. It not only condemned Russia in a high-profile diplomatic manner, but also introduced sanctions against Russia. Seeing this development, Russia is also on the issue of the four northern islands. Showing a tough stance and announcing its withdrawal from the Japan-Russia peace treaty negotiation, East Asia was suddenly filled with chaos. On this topic, "Multidimensional News" interviewed He Sishen, Distinguished Professor of the Japanese Department of Fu Jen Catholic University and Director of the Center for Japanese and East Asian Studies, and Adjunct Professor of the Japanese Department of National Taiwan University, to discuss the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian War on Japan-Russia relations, as well as the impact on Sino-Japanese relations. may affect. This is the first in a series of interviews (two in total).

The second part of the series of interviews: Interview with He Sishen | If there is no major earthquake between China and the United States, the "Shinkansen" between China and Japan will not be easy to derail

Duowei: After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Japan responded to the call of the United States with a high profile, condemning and sanctioning Russia. I don't know what international political considerations are behind such a move?

He Sishen: The scale of Japan's sanctions against Russia this time is more comprehensive and more substantial than in 2014. After the Crimea crisis in 2014, Japan's performance was more of a "form of punishment", only banning products related to the Crimea region, but not rising to sanctions against Russia. This is of course related to Shinzo Abe's foreign policy. We all know that Abe has made great efforts to improve Japan-Russia relations and has always hoped to complete the Japan-Russia peace treaty negotiation.

At the same time, the attitude of the United States in 2014 was not so tough. This time, before Russia officially dispatched troops, the United States had already started preparations for sanctions against Russia. In fact, before the conflict broke out, Japan had "reservations" about whether to follow up on sanctions against Russia. I think it was because Japan judged itself that Russia would probably not send troops, so it did not actively follow up at the beginning. Of course, from the perspective of subsequent development, Japan's early judgments were inaccurate. However, after the conflict broke out, compared with the low-key sanctions of South Korea and Singapore, Japan's position was relatively "beating the gongs and drums", just like Taiwan.

In analyzing the actions of the current Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, he probably has two major external considerations. First, as a member of the G7, Japan, in the face of the obvious fact that Russia invaded Ukraine, naturally has to stand with other G7 members; secondly, Kishida hopes that Japan will become the most important ally of the United States in East Asia, and can be used as the most important ally of the United States in East Asia. Forward, especially Japan is now the rotating country of the "Quad Security Dialogue" (Quad), and the summit will be held soon in late May. At this juncture, it is difficult for Japan to be different from the United States.

In Kishida's plan, Qaud is not only a mechanism to counter China, but also a symbol of a multi-party alliance between the United States, Japan, India and Australia. Even after Yin Xiyue officially takes office in the future, Japan may persuade South Korea to join. Of course, it is still uncertain whether Yin Xiyue will accept it. After all, Yin Xiyue has to consider the impact of this move on the situation on the peninsula and the impact on China-South Korea relations.

In addition, in the Quad quartet, there is no significant difference in the position of the United States, Japan and Australia on Russia, but India is a maverick. Therefore, we can also see that when Kishida visited India on March 19, he hoped to convey the phrase "don't think that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has nothing to do with me". Japan wants India to understand that "resisting China but not Russia" may seem simple, but it is actually endorsing Russia's invasion. In this way, it may create a "bad demonstration" for the Sino-Indian border conflict. In other words, in order to persuade India, Japan did not hesitate to compare China to the next Russia, "pointing at the bald man and scolding the monk".

But in fact, for India, he also has substantial difficulties. First, 60% of India’s armament comes from Russia. Second, the US-India relationship in the Cold War era was not good, but the Soviet-Indian relationship developed steadily, laying the foundation for today’s Russia-India relationship. Today's India seems to be tied to the United States on the issue of "anti-China". In fact, its diplomatic means are quite flexible. The United States and India may be able to cooperate on certain issues, but India has no intention of forming a "strategic alliance" with the United States. The Ukrainian conflict is a typical case.

Japan's concern is that if India and other members of the Quad have a different understanding of the conflict, or even become detached from it, it may lead to "brain death" of the organization, and then it will not be a "Quad+", but a "Quad-". I think Kishida regards the Quad as an important political stage in Japan, not only to bring Joe Biden to East Asia, but also to expand Japan's influence in East Asia, and to strengthen Japan's alliance power on security issues. Therefore, when Kishida handled the Russia-Ukraine issue, his position was very biased towards the United States, and he did not consider the Japan-Russia relations that Abe had been actively managing before, including the four northern islands and the Japan-Russia peace treaty negotiations.

Duowei: You mentioned Kishida's external considerations when handling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, including maintaining US-Japan relations, strengthening Quad functions, and enhancing Japan's strategic presence in East Asia. I don't know what is the purpose of Kishida's actions from the perspective of Japan's internal affairs?

He Sishen: Kishida also wants to prove that his foreign policy is more wise than Abe, but the latter does not seem to think so at this stage.

In all fairness, Abe is indeed a prime minister who is good at diplomacy. During his tenure, G7 members such as Germany, France, and Canada did not get along well with Donald Trump. Only Abe can serve Trump well. Post: When Russia held the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, many European and American countries boycotted it, but Japan did not participate. The United States has been dissatisfied with Abe's line against Russia during the past Barack Obama administration.

In Abe's line of thinking, he mainly believes that Japan cannot be "enemies on both sides", that is, it must first resolve the Japanese-Russian dispute in the north before it can spare no effort to pressurize China. If Abe can pull Russia into the US-Japan camp, there will be an opportunity to isolate China and avoid a "back-to-back" situation between China and Russia, but the development of the current situation may make Abe's calculations fail. In fact, the closeness of China and Russia is not necessarily because the two sides like each other, but because there is a problem in the relationship between China and the United States, which pushes China and Russia together. We can see that the video of the visit to Xi on March 18 was actually intended to bring Sino-US relations back to the "guardrail", which involved how to "consolidate" the one-China policy, that is, whether the United States could abide by the Taiwan issue. "Three Communiqués".

Returning to the issue of Japan-Russia relations, Kishida is indeed inferior to Abe in handling Japan-Russia relations. However, we cannot use Kishida's attitude towards Russia to infer his attitude towards China, nor can we mechanistically interpret it as "one-sided towards the United States" like Tsai Ing-wen. From a geopolitical point of view, China and Russia have different meanings to Japan. Russia in the north is indeed a threat, but Kishida still values the Quad platform and wants this informal security dialogue mechanism to become a multilateral security in East Asia. The maintenance mechanism can not only prevent China, but also prevent Russia.

Multidimensional: Looking at Japan's sanctions against Russia, the level has been upgraded from targeting defense diplomats, arms manufacturers and exporters, imposing seafood import tariffs, restricting transactions with the Russian Central Bank, and prohibiting the export of semiconductor products and technologies to Russia. . How will such restrictions affect both parties? That is, whether it can hit Russia on key projects, will Japan be hurt in return?

He Sishen: In fact, there is another key reason why Japan has made a high-profile statement on sanctions, that is, the economic and trade relations between Japan and Russia are not as intertwined as those between China and Japan. If it were to sanction China today, Japan would have a lot of considerations.

But facing Russia, whether in terms of industrial chain or market dependence, Japan does not have to worry too much. As for freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs and senior officials in Japan, how much assets do these people have in Japan? Kick Russia out of SWIFT in one fell swoop, in fact, many countries around the world have kicked Russia out, not worse than Japan. In short, for Japan, many of the sanctions projects against Russia that it has participated in do not have substantial lethality to the economies of both Japan and Russia. After all, the propaganda significance outweighs the substantive impact.

When it comes to the rise in energy and food prices, in fact, regardless of whether Japan sanctioned Russia or not, the prices of both are disturbed by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and they would have risen. For other commodities such as chips, Japan itself is not a big exporter of chips, and its chips are almost all imported. Companies such as Panasonic are very pessimistic and believe that Japan's chip exports may drop to 0 in the future. Sanctions on Russia?

Judging from the data, in addition to energy, the bulk of Japan-Russia trade is agricultural products, raw materials and intermediate materials. There will be price fluctuations in a short period of time, but alternative suppliers can be found. Japan does not rely heavily on Russia for energy. Oil relies mainly on the Middle East, and liquefied natural gas is the United States. Therefore, the so-called sanctions against Russia, Japan can say it beautifully, but it is really not harmful.

Multidimensional: After Japan's high-profile announcement of sanctions, Russia announced on March 21 that it would withdraw from the negotiations on the peace treaty of World War II, and at the same time withdrew from the negotiations on the joint economic development project of the disputed Kuril Islands (including the four northern islands), and even canceled the travel of Japanese citizens to the northern four. The island is visa-free, and the efforts of Japan and Russia to mend relations over the past years have been ruined. I wonder what you think of the future development of the issue of the four northern islands?

He Sishen: Actually, I think so, even if Russia did not withdraw from the World War II peace treaty negotiation with Japan, it would be difficult for the two sides to reach a substantive result at present. Therefore, the main effect of Russia's withdrawal is to humiliate Japan and send a signal that "Japan-Russia relations may seriously regress", which means that Abe's efforts in the past 7 years and 8 months are instantly zero.

Strictly speaking, if there is no negotiation on the issue of the four northern islands, there will never be a solution. Looking back on the various plans discussed by the two sides, whether it was the "return of the two islands" that Russia had promised when Japan and Russia established diplomatic relations in 1956, or the "four islands equally divided between the two sides according to the area" proposed by Japan after a wishful thinking. Japan gets one-third of Etoro Island, plus Kunou Island, Habomai Islands, and Shirotan Island, all of which can only be put on hold now, because Russia's attitude is "I don't want to talk to you." But this does not mean that "negotiations cannot be made in the future", but it may take some time for Japan and Russia to reopen relevant negotiations.

From the perspective of the composition of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (generally referred to as the Liberal Democratic Party), the "Hongike Club" that inherits the tradition of the "Liberal Party", that is, the faction of Shigeru Yoshida, Isato Ikeda, and Fumio Kishida, has always been more in line with the United States; the "Democratic Party" system is relatively Conservative, including Hatoyama Ichiro, Kishi Shinsuke, Abe Shinzo and others. When the Allied forces occupied Japan after the war, those who had had close ties to militarism were punished with "post-office" (large-scale removal of right-wing and conservative forces), but after the start of the Cold War, the United States lifted this ban, and these people He returned to the political arena to set up the "Democratic Party", and under the direction of the United States, formed an alliance with the "Liberal Party", which is also a pan-conservative system, and has today's Liberal Democratic Party. However, there has always been a clear distinction between the "Liberal Party" and the "Democratic Party", just like the reform and conservative groups in South Korea.

Take the promotion of the "normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Soviet Union" in 1956 as an example. Ichiro Hatoyama, who was born in the "Democratic Party" system, led the matter back then. One of the reasons why he attracted the Soviet Union was that he was dissatisfied with Yoshida, who was born in the "Liberal Party" system. Mao is too pro-beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, the reason why Abe focused on Japan-Russia diplomacy during his tenure in office was not only from his "family origin" (Nobusuke Kishi was his grandfather), but also influenced by the tradition of the "Democratic Party".

When Russia interacts with Japan, it is always more reassuring to see a prime minister from the "Democratic Party" system, and to see a prime minister from the "Liberal Party" system, there will be an established impression of "following the United States". If you compare Abe's and Kishida's lines toward Russia, you will definitely feel this way.

The original text was published on 2022/3/28 " Multidimensional News "