February 13, 2008: On February 9th, a
Russian Tu-95 entered Japanese airspace, near an uninhabited island about 600
kilometers south of Tokyo. Although the Russian aircraft was in Japanese
airspace for only about three minutes, the Japanese launched 22 aircraft to
intercept. This force included two AWACs aircraft and twenty fighters. It's
been two years since a Russian aircraft has entered Japanese airspace without
permission, and I guess the Japanese reaction explains why.
Actually, the Japanese have recently
been pressuring the Russians to return the Kurile islands (off northern Japan),
and this has caused a lot of tension. These four islands were seized at the end
of World War II, and the Russians kept them. The Kurils had been occupied by
Japanese for centuries, but when Russia reached the Pacific coast in the 17th
century, they began to send ships down to the Kurils. In 1875, Japan and Russia
signed a treaty settling claims in the area. Japan acknowledged Russias claim
to the larger Shakalin island to the north, while Russia acknowledged that the
Kurils belonged to Japan. After World War II, Russia expelled the 17,000
Japanese inhabitants of the four Kuril islands Japan claims. Russians were
brought in, and about 16,000 of them (including many Ukrainians, Koreans and so
on) currently inhabit the islands. There's not much economic value to the
Kurils, but the Russians are still hacked off at losing a war to Japan in 1905,
and to Japanese soldiers occupying parts of eastern Russia after World War I.
Japan and Russia had a non-aggression treaty for most of World War II. But
Russia declared war on Japan on August 15th, 1945, and promptly invaded
Japanese occupied northern China (Manchuria). Japanese surrendered to the
United States a month later. You could say that Japan and Russia have a lot of
unresolved issues.
