LOS ANGELES -- The Japanese people are angry about a lot of things these days, not just their soggy economy. They are angry about the collision of a U.S. submarine with a Japanese fisheries ship off Hawaii. They are angry about their prime minister, Yoshiro Mori, who incredibly continued with a golf game last week even after aides had informed him of the tragedy. And they have been angry for months at Russia for acting in a dangerously petty, if not ugly and treacherous, way over something important to them: the return of the so-called Northern Territories. And to add to Japan's frustration, all these issues are related.
The Russian issue, scarcely known in the West, involves control of a string of islands just off the northern coast of Japan. The Russians say the islands belong to them; the Japanese say otherwise. The truth is that Japan is right, and the Russians should give them back.
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin reneged on a three-year-old promise to meet with Japan's prime minister over what the Russians call the Kuril Islands, and the Japanese the Chishima Islands, but which are widely known as the Northern Territories. In the waning days of World War II, the Russians seized the islands as a vanquished Japan was imploding. But in recent years, Tokyo had been led to believe that at least two of the larger islands would soon be returned.