99% of the Japanese will never accepted that including the hardliner and nationalist that support Abe. Northern Territories are historically Japanese for many centuries. Many Japanese lived on that islets for many centuries only to be chase out by Russia after WWII.
What you are saying is selling off the Japan history and Japanese. Thats equal to treason. No true Japanese will accept that.
It is no longer Japanese 'territory' since it is not governed by Japan, nor are there any Japanese citizens there, anymore. When the Soviet Union assumed control of Sakhalin Island as well as the southern Kuril Islands, the first thing they did was eject all Japanese citizens who lived there. Those who did not leave merely swore allegiance to Russia , hence they are now Russian citizens as well. Most of the Japanese citizens who did leave that territory are now settled in Greater Hokkaido region or have moved to Honshu (as most of the Japanese immigration to the nothern territories were folks from Honshu).
In fact as an ethnic Ainu Japanese myself, I have closer relations to the Nivinkh ethnic group as well as Ainu ethnics living in Sakhalin than southern Japanese from Shikoku , Kyushu or Honshu. Shikoku and Kyushu folks are more Chinese Han than they are Ainu or Jomon anyways. Northern Japanese like myself are closer to Far East Asian ethnics from Russia like the Buryats, Nivinkh , Ainu since we share the same oral history, same shaman culture, same hunting folklore and even dialectics.
99% of the Japanese will never accepted that including the hardliner and nationalist that support Abe. Northern Territories are historically Japanese for many centuries. Many Japanese lived on that islets for many centuries only to be chase out by Russia after WWII.
For centuries? My friend the 'Japanese' colonizers of Kuril islands and southern Sakhalin were not Yayoi southerners (whom my kind refer to as similar to Chinese) , but were colonized by Northern Japanese Ainu like myself. It has always been the Northern Japanese that have had millenial contact with the Buryats, the Nivenkh. Long before the Bakufu brought Hokkaido to bear under the orbit of the Japanese Empire, long have my kind lived and fished the waters there for thousands of years.
99% of the Japanese will never accepted that including the hardliner and nationalist that support Abe.
Where is this 99% you are getting from? Where is the poll? Most Japanese are central-leaning and the Uyoku Dantai (right wing extremists) are a small minority of the population. Abe is a politician and in order to consolidate his power he has to accomodate the wishes of the majority of the Japanese people, or else they won't be elected, and Abe won't receive confident vote that he needs to make necessary changes to the :
- constitution
- electorate system
- tax reform
So the political economy of Japan is not so basilar as you have described, rather, it is complex and is composed of inter-factional dynamics stemming due to the various political interests in Japanese politics. We have, afterall, segments of the population that are communists, socialists, republicans, monarchists , some who view Russian relations as imperative, some who view relations with America as imperative, some who view relations with China as imperative, and others who view taking advantage of all three China, Russia and America to advance Japanese interests (he he he).
I believe that ultimately Japan will settle the territory issue with Russia. Its not so much an issue with Japanese will to end this dispute with Russia , but Washington's protestations and stressing the importance of "Japan walking the line with the global alliance mechanism".
