The Progress and Limits of Russia-japan Relations

n recent years, Russia and Japan have made certain progress in promoting bilateral relations. The two sides affirmed their commitment to building a strategic partnership

and developing bilateral cooperation in all fields, advanced economic cooperation and territorial negotiations with parallel actions gradually expanded and upgraded military security dialogues and coordination actively promoted and invigorated people-to-people exchanges reached a preliminary consensus on the negotiation basis of territory and peace treaty. That being said, there is still a huge gap between the progress of Russia-japan relations and the expectations of both sides, which reflects the ceilings of the development of bilateral relations: Russia-japan relations have no substantial improvement the intentional economic cooperation outnumbers the actually implemented ones there will still be no agreement truly reached between the two sides on territory and peace treaty issues within a foreseeable time. n the Abe Era, the Russia-japan relationship was obviously volatile and vulnerable, with an apparent discrepancy in the interaction between the two countries. Looking forward to the Yoshihide Suga Era, it is difficult to make a new breakthrough in Russia-japan relations, and there is even a risk of decline. But at the same time, the needs to develop mutual relations will keep Russia and Japan “never derail”. n the long run, Russia and Japan will continue to maintain dialogues and explore possible ways to advance bilateral relations under the treaty-free state.