On August 15, 1945, the Japanese Emperor announced his unconditional surrender, but this night the Commander of the Soviet Army in the Far East, Vasilevsky, issued an order to the troops: Capture the Japanese Kuril Islands!
Three days later, at 4 a.m., soviet troops stationed on kamchatka took advantage of the thick fog at sea to launch a surprise attack on the neighboring island of Champa.
The Japanese on the island were caught off guard and could only lay down their weapons and surrender after a brief resistance. But the Soviets did not stop, but continued to attack south from island to island.
Finally, on September 2, on the eve of Japan's formal signing of the instrument of surrender, the Soviets successfully advanced to the vicinity of Hokkaido Island, and they could land on the Japanese mainland as long as they took another step forward.
But then stalin's order came from Moscow: stop the offensive.
After receiving the order to stop the attack, the Soviet troops on the front line immediately turned into a defensive state and began to deal with the matter of receiving the surrender of the Japanese army.
Although the plan to land on hokkaido islands was canceled, the Soviet officers and soldiers who were slightly sorry at the time did not expect that their operation had actually successfully seized a new territory for future generations.
Through this bold and decisive assault operation, the Soviet Union successfully pocketed the entire Kuril Islands, moving the border with Japan by a thousand kilometers in the direction of Japan.
The Soviets were happy, but the Japanese were very difficult to accept this result.
As a result, Japan engaged in a protracted territorial dispute with the Soviet Union and, subsequently, Russia.
Not long ago, Japan's new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, during the parliamentary debate, ambitiously expressed his desire to completely resolve the territorial dispute with Russia.
But the Russians calmly said: Every new Japanese leader is like this, and we are used to it.
Of course, Japan's territorial claims against Russia are not all the islands laid by the Soviets in August 1945, but only four of them.
Fumio Kishida
As we mentioned earlier, the Soviet Union took the entire Kuril Islands after the Japanese Emperor announced his surrender, but japan had a different view on this, believing that the Soviet Union had taken more territory than the Kuril Islands.
The Kuril Islands are composed of 56 islands, which are generally divided into three parts: northern, central, and southern, of which four islands located in the south and close to the Japanese mainland (Note: these four islands are called by Japan as Kunigo, Zega, Tooth Dance, and Sedan), which are the objects of contention between Japan and Russia.
In Russia's eyes, the four southern islands are part of the Kuril Islands, called the "South Kuril Islands". In 1945, under the Yalta Agreement, the Soviet Union acquired the entire Kuril Islands, including these four islands, by its own strength, and Russia, as the successor state of the Soviet Union, naturally had the right to obtain sovereignty over all the islands.
However, in the eyes of the Japanese, these four islands were not part of the Kuril Islands, and the Soviet Union could acquire ownership of the Kuril Islands under the Yalta Agreement, but should not bring these four islands into them.
For this reason, Japan specifically refers to these four islands as the "Four Northern Islands" or "Northern Territories" and resolutely draws a clear line between them and the Kuril Islands.
That's why we often hear that this place has two very different names, "South Kuril Islands" or "Four Northern Islands".
Yalta Conference
The reason for this situation is that in addition to Russia and Japan's disagreement on the specific scope of the Kuril Islands, there is another factor that cannot be ignored, that is, the practice of the United States in that year.
The United States and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II, but when the United States and Japan fought each other in the Pacific, the Soviet Union did not help the United States fight Japan together.
Until the end of the war, the United States set a series of conditions in order to allow the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan as soon as possible. Among them, the Yalta Agreement clearly stipulates that the Kuril Islands will be handed over to the Soviet Union.
Curiously, however, the United States did not delineate the specific extent of the Kuril Islands, which left both the Soviet Union and Japan with a narrative.
The Soviet Union believed that the Kuril Islands should include the so-called four northern islands claimed by Japan, but Japan believed that one is one, two is two, and the two places should not be confused, and the four northern islands are Japan's inherent territory. So is this four northern islands really Japan's "inherent territory"?
The four northern islands in history were clearly recorded in Japanese literature in 1644. The Hokkaido magistrate at the time handed over a map to the Tokugawa shogunate showing 39 islands in northeastern Hokkaido, including the four northern islands.
Therefore, according to the information found so far, this place was indeed the first to come to the Japanese, but at this time, Japan did not intend to pay attention to the outside world, nor did it bother to pay attention to the islands in remote places.
As a result, in 1717, the Russians came. A man named Anzferov made his first ascent to the Kuril Islands, and a growing number of Russian explorers, scholars, and armies flocked to the islands.
By the late 18th century, many of the islands of the Kuril Islands had been declared their own territory by Russia. As the activities of the two countries in this area increased, there was inevitable contact and friction between the two sides.
In 1811, Japan took the lead in detaining Russian personnel, and then the other side retaliated. But such a thing was so annoying that the two countries decided to draw a clear border. In this way, in 1855, the two countries signed the Treaty of Good Relations between Japan and Russia, which divided the Kuril Islands into two and took what they needed according to the principle of proximity.
The four northern islands are naturally classified in Japan because of their proximity to Japan. The status quo that Japan wants to restore today is actually the national border stipulated in this treaty.
It didn't take long, however, for Japan and Russia to fight again, this time over Sakhalin Island, which was still part of China at the time.
Originally, sakhalin Island's location was relatively remote, coupled with the internal and external difficulties of the central government of the Qing Dynasty in the mid-to-late 19th century, this place was even less valued. So the Japanese and the Russians took the opportunity to come to Sakhalin Island, and there was a fight here.
In 1860, the Russians forced China to sign an unequal treaty to take Sakhalin Island for itself, but Japan did not want to see Russia monopolize Sakhalin Island and insisted on carving out a piece of land on the island.
In 1875, the two sides contended, and in 1875, they signed the Treaty of Birch Islands (Note: Birch Tai is Japan's name for Sakhalin Island; Kuril Refers to the Kuril Islands), which stipulates that Russia will hand over the entire Kuril Islands to Japan, in exchange for Japan's recognition that Sakhalin Island belongs entirely to Russia.
However, Japan had also embarked on the road of foreign expansion at this time, and it was not satisfied with the outcome of this exchange. Finally, in 1905, Japan defeated Russia by war and signed the Treaty of Portsmouth with it, forcing Russia to cede half of the southern sakhalin island.
At this time, Japan occupied the entire Kuril Islands and about half of Sakhalin Island, and the border between the two sides was maintained until August 1945.
But the Soviet Union, which evolved from Russia, was so angry at its defeat at Japanese men forty years ago that it did not forget to strike the Japanese forces in southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands when launching attacks against the Japanese forces in northeast China and the Korean Peninsula.
This brings us to the scene we mentioned at the beginning, the first attacked by the Soviet army, the island of Champa is located in the northernmost part of the Kuril Islands, and the result of the Soviet attack is that Japan not only spit out all the results of the previous three treaties (Note: 1855 "Japan-Russia Treaty of Friendship"; 1875 "Birch Islands Exchange Treaty"; 1905 "Portsmouth Treaty"), but also lost the original northern four islands on its doorstep.
After the war, Japan no longer thought about Sakhalin Islands and the entire Kuril Islands, but only wanted to take back the four northern islands next to it and burn incense.
But now that every country is aware of the importance of territory, no one will easily give up territory.
For Russia, controlling the four northern islands not only means that it has several more natural harbors on the Pacific coast, but also that it can effectively contain the activities of Japan and the United States with a width of less than 30 kilometers from the Japanese mainland.
At the same time, in the modern world where the marine economy is in the ascendant, an island can also bring the ownership and use of huge amounts of resources to its host country, and the minerals and fisheries near the four northern islands are enough to support Russia's confidence in continuing to compete with Japan for sovereignty.
For Japan, on the other hand, the absence of the four northern islands means losing them, so they will continue to compete with Russia anyway.
But as one great man once said, sovereignty is not a debatable issue, so the dispute over these four islands is bound to last for many years.
Content Source:
Pan Sicheng, "The Dispute Between The Four Northern Islands of Japan and Russia", Military Digest, No. 7, 2021
Wang Qinghai and Yang Yafei, "The Origin, Development and Trend of the Problem of the Four Northern Islands between Russia and Japan", Modern International Relations, No. 5, 1999
Russian satellite news agency Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and so on