Subject: EEE会議（日露エネルギー協力：パイプライン問題）
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 08:50:50 +0900
From: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位

今次小泉訪ロの１つのポイントはエネルギー協力、とくにシベリアの石油パイ
プライン建設問題だと思いますが、この問題については、当然のことながら政
治的、経済的、戦略的に議論すべき点が多いようです。国内でも今後いろいろ
な意見が出てくるでしょうが、小生が参加している米国のあるEメール会議で
のやり取りの一部をご参考までに次にご紹介します。この問題に詳しい方のご
意見を是非お聞かせ下さい。
金子熊夫

In regards to Russian & Japanese oil cooperation impinging on U.S.
interests, don't count on it. Daniel Yergin pointed out several weeks
ago in a Washington Post op-ed that Russia has burgeoning oil &
gas trade with the U.S. that is competing with Saudi Arabia. Yergin
cited the construction of a large port in the Russian Far East to
supply oil and gas to the U.S. West Coast.

Post-Soviet Russia's foreign relationships are also far more flexible
than the old Soviet Union's was. Case in point -- Russia provides
weapons & training to both India & China, despite the fact that India
& China still [albeit quietly] view each other as regional rivals.
Another case in point -- Russia has allowed the U.S. forward bases
in it's former Central Asia Republics [heresy 2 years ago} to fight in
Afghanistan, yet provides diplomatic [and maybe military] support to
Iraq.

An agreement between Japan & Russia may lead to improved
relations based on commercial interactions, but is not likely to lead
to a Russo-Japanese entente. Russia has already shown itself to
highly flexible in terms of its regional relationships. A Russo-
Japanese-Sino entente is even less in the offing. Beijing & Tokyo
still have too many unresolved issues [Senkakus/Diaoyutai, Korean
Peninsula, South China Sea, U.S.-Japan alliance] to be worked out
before they can cooperate. Moscow, if anything, will seek to take
advantage of these disputes to extract as many concessions as it
can from both Beijing & Tokyo.

The oil pipeline that is being built is not the first step towards a
Russia-Japanese entente -- it is Russia's first step back into playing
a major role in the Northeast Asian balance of power.

Stan Chan

*********************************

It is hard to imagine that Russian and Japan need to have
distributing hands of America to transport Siberian oil and natural
gas to Japan. It seems completely against the principle
of "efficiency" which the US monetarists preach. It is my
understanding that in lieu of the structural reform and globalisation
theory which the USA preaches to the rest of the world, inserting an
extra step of american oil industry buying oil from Russia and
selling it to Japan is "irregular", a serious violation of the
"principle"
of "reform".

>Post-Soviet Russia's foreign relationships are also far more flexible
>than the old Soviet Union's was. Case in point -- Russia provides
>weapons & training to both India & China, despite the fact that
India
>& China still [albeit quietly] view each other as regional rivals.
>Another case in point -- Russia has allowed the U.S. forward bases
>in it's former Central Asia Republics [heresy 2 years ago} to fight
in
>Afghanistan, yet provides diplomatic [and maybe military] support
>to Iraq.

This is not consistent with the fact that Mr. Gorbachov, the last
president of Soviet Union, was way more flexible than the Russian
president Yeltsin regarding the disputed northern territory of Japan.
According to Hon. Utsunomiya Tokuma's account, the disputed
northern territory of Japan was "given" to Mr. Stalin by the US/UK
alliance as a bait to encourage Red Army's invasion of Japan
occupied Manchuria. It was said that Stalin was reluctant because
of the Japan/Soviet nonaggression pact, which was kept "quite" in
tact during the WWII. The "commonly" used argument to interpret
Mr. Stalin's refusal to attend the Sanfrancisco meeting as the
indication of Soviet's "unilateral" action to occupy the Northern
Territory is refuted by Japan's conservative camp. Indeed, it appears
that it was the deepened mistrust between Soviet and the USA/UK
which lead to this boycott of the Sanfrancisco meeting by Mr.
Stalin. It is reported that Mr. Utsunomiya said that Stalin used the
lost territory during the Japan/Russia war as an excuse to invade
Manchuria and take the Northern territory of Japan.

After all, Mr. Chan's observation that Russia is more flexible than
the Soviet regarding the energy supply is inconsistent with yet
another important fact. It was France and Germany who supported
Mr. Gorbachov's reform of Soviet Union ignoring the warning from
the US and UK. In this relationship, Gorbachov's Soviet and EU
agreed that EU helped Soviet to build transcontinental pipe line and
Soviet supply natural gas to EU at extremely low cost. The
agreement was unilaterally cancelled by US backed Yeltsin after
Yeltsin disposed Mr. Gorbachov.

Dr. Akira Kanda