Russia ties deepening over energy, security (Japan)

Japan Times ^ | Hiroki Sugita

[cunning_fish]

Political links boosted amid China moves, need for Sakhalin's fuels

Just 160 km from the northern tip of Hokkaido, Sakhalin is a desolate island that has long been ignored by world powers. Remnants of Japanese shrines are reminders that the island was governed by Imperial Japan until the end of World War II.

Now this lonely island, with huge reserves of oil and natural gas, is emerging as a strategic connection between Cold War-era foes Japan and Russia, making them close partners and even potential allies, with their leaders having met four times last year and discussed increased Russian energy exports to Japan.

“Although most Japanese don’t know it, Russia can rescue Japan from its energy quagmire. Russia has huge resources and her oil and gas prospects in Sakhalin and other parts of eastern Russia are geographically close to Japan,” said Kazuhiko Fuji, chief research fellow at the Institute for International Policy Studies.

Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster started on March 11, 2011, Japan has been increasing its oil and gas imports to make up for energy losses spawned by the shutdown of all its nuclear power stations.

Russia has its own motives for boosting natural gas exports to Japan. Despite having the largest gas reserves in the world, the country is in danger of losing markets in Europe and Asia. Shale gas produced in North America is sold internationally at a lower price, squeezing out Russian gas....

[ETL]

"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin’s State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

What this former KGB officer is saying is that it would have been better for the world if a totalitarian dictatorship, one that in the seven decades of its existence was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Russians and other peoples or their imprisonment in a Gulag slave labor system, were still to exist. Just imagine if the chancellor of Germany were to announce that the fall of the Third Reich was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”"

http://web.archive.org/web/20060116060511/http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html

[cunning_fish]

>>>The collapse of ‘Evil Empire’ has effectively ended an American century reshaping global affairs more heavily than WWII, which actually made US a leading global power at the time. In that sense US has lost its mission as a center of the free world.
So Putin considers the collapse of the Soviet Union a catastrophe because it weakened America’s position in the world?<<<

I respect the way you stand for your principles, ETL, but you really tend to simplify things beyond any reasonable level.
He said what he said and as I told it has multiple meanings.
US decline is one of numerous consequences of Soviet collapse. Are you happy with that? Another consequences are enormous rise of Red China, a slide of Central Asia into barbarism making them an easy pick for a Chinese on a way to a Gulf oil, Islamofascism on the rise globally etc.
Soviet collapse even affected a US domestic policy hurting American conservatism badly. The lesser military spending after Cold War allowed expanding welfare state to push more idiots on Rat plantation.

[ETL]

US decline is one of numerous consequences of Soviet collapse. Are you happy with that?

It's not a question of what I think, but rather what Putin did when he made the remark. I doubt he was troubled in any way by the 'US decline' as you put it.

[ETL]

In any case, Japan should be concerned with Russia's cozying up to the ChiComs.

From April 22, 2012 (Lenin's birthday)...

China-Russia Yellow Sea naval drills begin
AP via Yahoo News ^ | April 22, 2012

BEIJING (AP) — China and Russia launched joint naval exercises Sunday that highlight warming ties between their militaries and growing cooperation in international affairs.
[snip]
"It's an excellent exchange for China to be able to drill jointly in such sensitive areas," Yin told CCTV.
[snip]
Much of that cooperation takes place within the confines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a grouping of Central Asian states that seeks to check U.S. influence in the region and began holding joint drills in 2005.

Formerly Cold War rivals for leadership of the communist world, China and Russia have since found common ground in countering liberal democratizing trends across Asia and Eastern Europe and frequently vote against Western initiatives in the United Nations Security Council. ..."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
_____________________________________________

[ETL]

Chinese armored forces advance in Peace Mission-2013

Xinhua | 2013-8-10

A Chinese helicopter hovers the field for drill as Chinese armored forces advance during the Peace Mission-2013 China-Russia joint military drill in Chelyabinsk, Russia, on August 9, 2013. The 20-day Peace Mission-2013 China-Russia joint military drill began in Chelyabinsk on July 27. (Xinhua/Xian Yunqiang) 

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/802946.shtml

[cunning_fish]

Wargames are bluster, a way to smile at each other and carry a big stick.
BTW, Russia refused a sale of any critical weapon system to both China and Iran in a period of last 10 years.
At the same time Russia is actively arming both India and Vietnam - a historical Chinese enemies.
In case of India, Russians has provided a nuke sub to an Indian navy - an unprecedent act in arms trade ever. They had refurbished their mothballed carrier for Indians and offered their F-22ski to be build in India.
Relations between South Korea and Russia is at all time high at the moment. A few weeks ago they signed a free travel agreement between two nations.

[ETL]

Have you a single problem with the Russians or Putin? In all the years I’ve been reading your posts, I can recall anything. All you seem to do is prop them up.

[cunning_fish]

I have more than single and often written it here.