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Russian Flyover Prompts Japanese Fighter Jet Scramble As Abe Opens Second "Disputed Island" Front
While the collapse in China-Japan foreign relations (and subsequently, and much more importantly, trade) over a handful of islands in the East China Sea and strategically located near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves is by now well-known to everyone, what may come as a surprise is that while Japan is engaged in one mini cold war over disputed rocks with China, none other than Russia tested the waters overnight so to speak, with a fighter jet flyover above yet another set of disputed islands, the Kuriles located in the far north of Japan.
From Reuters: "Two Russian fighter jets briefly entered Japan's air space near disputed islands and the northern island of Hokkaido on Thursday, prompting Japan to scramble combat fighters and lodge a protest, Japan's Foreign Ministry said." In other words, Russia is making it very clear that as Japan loses more credibility in the foreign affairs arena, China will not be the only one to gain from Japan's loss, and that Russia has every intention of claiming what it too believes rightfully belongs to Putin. Which begs the question: how far is Japan's far more nationalistic current government willing to go to alienate yet another key trading partner, and was this the plane by the China-Russia axis all along?
From Reuters:
Russia, which is currently holding military maneuvers around the disputed Kurile islands, denied any such intrusion took place. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is expected to visit Moscow later this month to discuss territorial matters.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had told a rally he was determined to press ahead with negotiations with Russia for the return of the islands.
"I had telephone talks with President (Vladimir) Putin in December, and told him I would like to work to find a mutually acceptable solution to this last-remaining major problem between Japan and Russia," Abe said
"The government intends to follow its basic policy of settling the territorial issue and then sign a peace treaty. We will press ahead with negotiations with strong will so that progress will be made towards the conclusive resolution of the territorial problem."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev landed on the remote island chain in July, prompting protests from Tokyo.
The flyover was far from random, and was designed to send a clear message to Japan: "Thursday was Japan's "Northern Territories Day", when rallies are traditionally held calling for the return of the disputed islands it calls the Northern Territories."
Unlike the Chinese escalation which is over resources, the latest confrontation with Russia is about nothing more than nationalistic pride:
Unlike Japan's dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, which are near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves, the feud with Russia has more to do with the legacy of World War Two.
Soviet soldiers seized the islands at the end of the war and the territorial row has weighed on diplomatic relations ever since, precluding a formal peace treaty.
And since "nationalistic pride" tends to grow in direct proportion with how much weaker one's opponent is perceived, we anticipate that Japan will now have its hands full with not one but two sets of disputed islands, in turn leading to more local calls for pushback, and an even deeper deterioration in the country's trade balance, until finally not even a Yen at 0 can offset the complete loss of export markets, coupled with energy vendors who are turning so hostile they can now openly hold Japan hostage at whim.
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Mean while is that Satan standing over there in the corner ?
http://fiatflaws.blogspot.com/
America needs to get involved and sort this out once and for all. With great power come greate responsibility, and this nonsense has to end. Our CIA has professional negotiators who will be able to resolve this dispute. And if negotiation fails, then I'm afraid military force is the only option.
Quick.........somebody call Sarah Palin
Yeah ~ but Lerch will be "for" the fryovers until he's against them...
Paul "Let's Set The World On Fire" Krugman has a non-nocturnal emission with every flyover.
p.s. Who will be the new Archduke Franz Ferdinand? Predictions please...
BFD, Russia scraped their airspace...wasn't exactly a fucking flyover
Krugman claims they buzzed their tower, causing one officer to spill hot coffee on himself resulting in serious burns.
Positive development for Ron Burgundy's pants store.
Russia & China jointly bitchslapping the poor broke "west"...
Who's the next Ferdinand? It would be nice if it were Benny, woudln't it? A man can dream..
Was the spilt coffee a Starbucks? Buy buy buy!!!
MillionDollarBonus_ & TruthInSunshine delivers again... :)
I am always conflicted when I see MillionDollarBonus_ comments, because I want to upvote and downvote them at the same time, but I can't have both.
But Krugman, is not spill coffee good for economy? Spill hot coffee make is jobs for triage doctor and nurse, medical staff buy consumer goods, much money is make! Maybe is good spill whole pot of coffee!
Sue the coffee maker...the delivery man...McDs for the much-too-hot coffee...and so on...
Stimulate the economy!
Anyone who is familiar with Russian military discipline would know that they were probably just drunk.
That was a dumb comment, and I gave you a red (herring). Like saying that last time russian jets buzzed US fregate a couple of years back it was because gay US navy were engaging in sodomy rather than watching the radar.
Stereotypes and underestimating always get you in trouble. Afgan and Iraq were supposed to be a cakewalk 10+ years ago, remember?
No, actually is Russian Army to drink lots. Russian infantry is drink more than shower.
US Navy is really sodomy!?
Na zdorov'e, tovarish..... praporshick?
You are belongs to Putin!
Shirtless Putin! Riding a horse! And hefting a Kalashnikov!
Rumor has it that Putin wrestled a Giant Vampire Squid into submission, and this caused much friction between Russia & the USSA.
Hahaha! Vampire Squid! Rumor is grow bigger than Babushka's butt! Putin is not wrestle squid (how is can wrestle slippery sea mammal!?), but is wrestle bear. Putin is bite off arm of bear.
With the way things have been escalating in recent months, I honestly think there's a strong possibility that Japan may be the sovereign that begins the domino effect that leads to a collapse in confidence in paper money.
I mean think about it. Japan is today where the US will be in a few years. Record low interest rates, massive public debt, aging workforce, plunging production levels, etc. As ZH has pointed out so many times, even a slight rise in Japanese interest rates would mean all of Japan's tax revenues would be consumed by interest payments. Which obviously leads to only one scenario: the BOJ openly monetizing every piece of debt issuance.
Such a scenario would mean that Japan would be hard pressed to continue buying US paper (and could conceivably be forced to begin unwinding its exposure to US debt).
So we have either a collapsing Japanese bond market or a potential WWIII escalation (or both). Japan/China/Russia fires first, forcing the US to pick sides. Depressions almost always come after large scale wars.
Once global inflation begins to surge and bond yields begin to explode higher, the incentive for countries to move toward more stable (i.e. gold backed) currencies increases. People forget that while the Fed and other CBs saved the day 5 years ago, today is a much different playing field. Unconventional monetary policies (i.e. QE) have become the norm. When deflationary pressures once again reemerge, the only card CBs hold is massively expanding their balance sheets and crushing their respective currencies.
Are China and Russia giving Japan the same kind of treatment that NATO is giving Iran? Is there an Iran for Japan swap in the near future?
You know, I heard on the radio about one of the two aircraft carriers the US had in the Gulf moving out of the gulf, citing "concerns about military spending cutbacks". My fucking ass it's about cutbacks (which btw are never happening), and they conveniently didn't mention where that carrier went. Gee, should we just go ahead and assume it sailed west back to the US, or would we be "crazy conspiracy theorist" and suggest the more likely direction they're heading is east?
It is no secret where the carriers are. They canT hide them.
Where in the World is that carrier.
The US gold depository at Ft. Knox and the New York Fed's underground vaults COMBINED contain approximately one troy ounce of gold for each person in the USA. The EU and other countries maintain an even smaller ratio. However, when all is considered the ratio of digital fiat 'paper' units for each person, which are spread out over countless global data bases in many esoteric forms (ie derivitives), is probably something on the order of 109:1. This calculation makes it simply overwhelming to imagine how anyone could even think about backing currency with gold today.
Gold can't realistically be used as a primary medium of exchange, but in Weimar Germany it could be traded for dollars or pounds. However, with all countres today engaged in lock-step currency debasement that will lead to global hyperinflation, whose paper money will be bought with gold?
Also, is it actually possible to transfrom lead into gold? Yes!...and it's been done many times since Soviet engineers accidentally discovered at a Siberian nuclear site in 1971 that protective lead encasements inside a reactor had been changed into gold. Since then, everybody has been told that this process is nowhere near cost-effective, yet it's also known that related, highly secretive research was begun immediatly and has been conducted at a fever pitch ever since.
"Into the streets they will throw their very silver, and an abhorrent thing their own gold will become"--Ezekiel 7:19
can you be serious? Really?
“Gold can't realistically be used as a primary medium of exchange, but in Weimar Germany it could be traded for dollars or pounds. However, with all countries today engaged in lock-step currency debasement that will lead to global hyperinflation, whose paper money will be bought with gold?”
No paper required. Direct trade of goods for gold. If someone wants to dare issue their own non-central-bank paper against their own gold holdings so be it but the lesson to learn is the coin should always be in-hand, gold or silver.
“Also, is it actually possible to transfrom lead into gold? Yes!...”
No. You can smash neutrons into gold to make lead but to make gold GIVE UP a neutron would leave a short-lived isotope in a chain of decays. And none of it safe to handle which precludes any value for money OR non-nuclear industries.
"Into the streets they will throw their very silver, and an abhorrent thing their own gold will become"--Ezekiel 7:19
-10 for bible reference. One of the worst things to ever happen to humanity was religion. Almost as bad for decrying anything of real value (gold, silver, bread, tools) be thrown to the street. Sheer nonsense. Smart people will throw their slave shackles to the street. Dumb people will throw their freedom in the garbage.
The US gold depository at Ft. Knox and the New York Fed's underground vaults COMBINED contain approximately one troy ounce of gold for each person in the USA. The EU and other countries maintain an even smaller ratio. However, when all is considered the ratio of digital fiat 'paper' units for each person, which are spread out over countless global data bases in many esoteric forms (ie derivitives), is probably something on the order of 109:1. This calculation makes it simply overwhelming to imagine how anyone could even think about backing currency with gold today.
Gold can't realistically be used as a primary medium of exchange, but in Weimar Germany it could be traded for dollars or pounds. However, with all countres today engaged in lock-step currency debasement that will lead to global hyperinflation, whose paper money will be bought with gold?
Also, is it actually possible to transfrom lead into gold? Yes!...and it's been done many times since Soviet engineers accidentally discovered at a Siberian nuclear site in 1971 that protective lead encasements inside a reactor had been changed into gold. Since then, everybody has been told that this process is nowhere near cost-effective, yet it's also known that related, highly secretive research was begun immediatly and has been conducted at a fever pitch ever since.
"Into the streets they will throw their very silver, and an abhorrent thing their own gold will become"--Ezekiel 7:19
Will she fly aboard a George W. Obama drone?
she can see Putin wiggling his dick at her from her front porch
http://youtu.be/XR9V_aOCga0
In an alternate universe there's some serious shit going down there....
When all else fails, distract them with WAR.
Someone hit you with a down arrow? Yes, maybe your schtick is becoming a little stale, but brevity is the soul of wit and so I gave you the up arrow.
All I know is that me and mine are not going to die over japanese rocks. What happens when someone throws a war and noone shows up?
But they will show up, because the real war (as alex jones says) is for our minds. And they won that one.
Fuck Jones: the pied piper schill for the Davos crowd.
Junk me? Does he ever mention Zionistas? = schill.
He wouldn't be on the air if he did.
Shills are not automatically always wrong about every last thing.
Exactly, the best lie is usually mostly true. ... prepare to hard-turn before the lemming run meets the cliff edge ... just sayin ... feint within a feint
I say the world's most peaceful and free nation does what no other nation in the world has done before...nuke the shit out of them....for the sake of peace and tranquility of course.
Tel Aviv has its own nukes stashed around the globe...
Just an fyi....It's Led Zeppelin ,Pink Floyd, Ac/Dc....The Carpenters are right out.
Roger that...
Have you never been mellow?
Yeah I've been mellow on a few occasions.
Here I am at the advanced age 47 in the great state of Warshington and marijuana is now legal to posses - but not grow, buy, or sell. I haven't been mellow in decades and it looks like old dead Karen Carpenter will continue to have to be the best substitute.
I keep telling myself I've only just begun...
Well I'm about to turn 50 this year...it's probably been 20+ years since I've been mellow. Marrige with children does that to a person some times.
Shame on you guys...think of your blood pressure!
Indeed. I consume only legal hemp products such as hemp cereal from Trader Joes and hempseed meal from Costco (which has superior health effects to even flaxseed), but the publically available information I researched on Wikipedia indicates that the cannabis indica strain in particular is well known for it's very positive health effects. I have also read on Wikipedia that you don't need to "smoke" the substance in order to realize these positive health effects, and in fact, it is typically healthier to consume this substance as a tea or in a bakery item. I have also heard they even infuse the extract in soda.
The only time I was ever mellow was that time I was doin the jitterbug down in muskrat land...
With Suzy Muskrat...
OK, folks, you're mixing your 1970s pop artist metaphors.
Never been mellow - Olivia Newtonjohn
Suzy Muskrat - Captain & Tenille
It's yesterday once more, down by the Lazy River.
It's all a haze... One day I just woke up and I wasn't wearing bellbottoms anymore... That's all I can remember...
Well excuse me while I kiss the sky.
Makes me think of Sam Jackson and Kevin Spacey from The Negotiator
The appearance of the law must be upheld, Especially when it's being broken
When exactly did the US become Spiderman?
LOLLLLLLLL
Funny stuff MDB!
Nyet Fryovers!
Great! Maybe China can fight Russia, and Japan can be left alone to figure out what to do about its debt.
Why would they fight eachother, when they have so much to gain from their pan-pacific currency regime? Particularly when the only entity that presents any kind of roadblock to that scheme (Japan) is so severely weakened? What's going to be really interesting is figuring out what they're going to do with Australia/NZ. Thinking through self-preservation, it would be in the interest of Aus/NZ to sign on to said regime, even if it means going against the Commonwealth.
Like vultures flying over the carcass. Its not dead yet, but they are starting to pick at it.
Russian Ladas soon to be available at US auto dealerships.
Russian Ladas (the next Fiskers - but instead of the battery freezing the doors just fall off) sold to the American public as "environmentally friendly" or "green machines," that is.
The battle of Gog and Magog shall commence shortly.
Assange said it and it's true: these so called leaders need to be exposed as the murderous liars that they are. When they run out of OUR assets to rehypothecate, they start wars. This is what they do. Faber said it too. They (all) want war.
War works for rhesus macaque monkeys just like it does for the supposedly more evolved Homo sapiens.
Five to ten million years of wasted evolutionary time.
never underestimate the wrath of a PO'd spider monkey
I wonder how much of this is theater and distraction, and how much of it is hostile countries smelling blood in the water.
Until combat actually occurs, we must presume the former.
90/10 split id say doc. Btw, interested in picking up the gold thread later today? I was looking for you yesterday and ended up spooling it along with fonz a bit
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-06/why-time-wont-be-different-japa...
Thanks for the link. I've been busy the past couple of days, and it has been hard to make it on the Hedge. When I did it was mostly just to peruse the articles.
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:
. _ . . ~ _ _ ~ . _ ~ _ _ _
. _ . _ _ ~ . _ _ . . . . . _ _ ~ _ . . _ .
I read a long, long time ago, that Amerikkka would stretch itself thin by fighting useless wars, then find itself both unwilling and financially incapable of getting involved when a *true* threat materializes.
Are we there yet?
Darn good point, pointless! ;) America's financial wherewithall is dependent on the willingness of other countries to trade in USDs. We can bully a few small counties at a time, but alienating BRICS is another matter.
Why isn't this a good plan: Invite the international oil and gas industry (it is really multi-national) to put forward development proposals for the disputed islands, which would be declared an international develpment zone. China pick 1 winner, Japan another which would form an publically traded LLC that is IPOd. All crude produced by the LLC to be sold blindly to the highest bidder. Development is accelerated, shareholders win, economies win, no war.
Let me recast your plan as both the Chinese and Japanese see it.
Why isn't this a good plan: Invite the local school board (a group you shouldn't have to answer to) to put forward development proposals for your back yard, which would be declared a common area for you and your neighbor (who thinks your back yard is his). You pick 1 winner, your neighbor another which would form an publically traded LLC that is IPOd. All produce from the LLC to be sold blindly to the highest bidder (even though they were just yours to start). Development is accelerated, shareholders win, economies win, no war, and the fact that your back yard got taken is besides the point.
Yes, but was it ever really anybody's backyard to start with, or just some no man's land between both backyards?
fuck Japan...
did any of ya'll catch this shit...AGAIN............
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html
I wish there would be a 25% off sale on physical silver again. That is the kind of sale that gets the wife interested, not these technically driven bear attacks.
Japan enslaved Tawian from 1985 until 1945...I doubt the Taiwanese are very sympathetic to their former slave masters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Japanese_rule
Japan is stirring up some hot memopries form what I read.
*1895
Actually, there are a fair number of Taiwanese who feel quite at home with the Japanese, travel there comfortably, speak Japanese, and hold no negative feelings.
yes, I'm sure the feeling there are mixed with some in the south more favorable to the Japanese. What's odd is everyone was getting along until Japan decided to rock the boat....stir it up....stir up old emotions on purpose...for what purpose?
The Japanese did not do to the Taiwanese what they did to the Koreans under occupation. The Japanese wanted Taiwan as part of the Japanese chain; Korea was just for plunder.
Battle of Port Arthur II-bitchez
Funny? I just started my third reading of "Gold Warriors" and it's like I'm watching it play out on the news, a hundred years later.
What are the odds Chinese skip the painfully extended foreplay scenes and fast forward right to nuclear bombardment of Japan?
Nothing would shock me at this point in history. Well, maybe is Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan came flying out of the depths of Fukushima, assholes to mouths Human Centipede style, I might be surprised. Maybe.
I suppose WWIII being fought over Japan would be more interesting than Iran or Saints preserve us - India and Pakistan.
Funny Japan claims the Kuriles, when they shouldn't even be in Hokkaido: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjBYtYAOsJc
Currency wars. Next act real war.
If China and others are smart they would let the US go soviet union and be unable to afford it's military.
The US is getting closer to that moment.
"Unlimited money is the sinew of war" - Cicero
Yogi, I seriously doubt that the powers that pull the strings are going to allow the US military to weaken. The US military is their enforcer to push through their agenda around the world one way or another.
Until it isn't.
silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.
The powers that be have hands in ALL militaries not ONLY that of the USA.
Unlike the Chinese escalation which is over resources, the latest confrontation with Russia is about nothing more than nationalistic pride:
Nope - it's about DISTRACTION. China and Russia have large populations which are becoming restless - so the best thing to do is distract from internal issues of poverty with a nationalistic distraction.
I suspect Japan isn't too bothered about stopping this either - it serves them well too.
WWII started from the back of the depression - why would this one be any different?
I feel for Japan - it's going to lose out in this sabre rattling war as they have very few sabres to rattle.
...and you cannot rely on the west to stick up for you anymore - they are less and less relevant in the world today.
Imagine if China simply 'took' the islands - I can't see anything more than 'strong words from Hillary' being the response.
More likely it's about access to the secluded Kamchatka Sea and it's military bases and EEZ.
Japanese Jews...
It's always the Jews.
Guess what, just as with the China island dispute, US meddling and machinations are involved.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-05/chinese-warship-prepared-fire-japanese-destroyer-last-week#comment-3216046
?
The US is STRONGLY pressuring Japan to abandon Japan’s anti-militarism Constitution and re-arm (to boost US weapons sales, and as part of the hostile US “pivot” against China). Other Asian nations are less enthusiastic about a re-militarized Japan.
Per Wikipedia:
“The Yalta Agreement, signed by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, stated:
The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that: [....] 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.: (a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union; [....] 3. The Kurile Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.
Japan—as well as the US—claimed that the Yalta agreement did not apply to the Northern Territories because they were not a part of the Kuril Islands, although US geographers have traditionally listed them as part of the Kuril chain.”
The Cold Warrior President Truman later claimed that although that’s what the US said to agree , it was not what the US meant.
Ah, we just want a slight warm up somewhere, so we can test our drone fighters vs manned fighters, but no one wants to play Top Drone!
Jeez, does Honeywell write the code for this site?
Japan should have settled this issue long ago when times were good for Japan and poor for Russia. They could have likely made a monetary settlment with Yeltsin for peanuts. Now they have problems.
Isn't the foreign policy of occupied Japan what the US directs it to be?
I'm going to live "On the Beach"
Let me guess, Tyler, Japan's "aggressive rightists" are responsible for stirring up this trouble too?
Let me amend that so that whatever Tyler is in charge today doesn't confuse my intention: You are a fool, an idiot, and an ignoramus. Saying over and over again that Japan is in the grip of arch-nationalists will not make it any more true.
Putin already controls those islands in contravention of treaty obligations and this constant harping on a supine, flaccid and geriatric Japan as some kind of globe -stomping fascist monster instead of the pacifist country surrounded by petty tyrants looking take a bite has me flummoxed and irritated. I expect outright lies from the MSM, not here. Care to defend any of your baseless and ignorant opinions? Or are you the kind of person who cheers YouTube videos of 15 punks playing "knock-out game" on an old woman on the subway.
You don't see the hilarity of Abe deciding to focus on this, out of all the problems facing Japan?
Not currency destruction, not demographic challenges, not getting the house in order.
No, no, Japan has something much more pressing - reclaiming islands taken from elderly Japanese pensioners before the first half of the last century.
A scalded vulva is no laughing matter ! Hot coffee enemas .... on the other hand .... are hilarious !
If no one said "Hey, Russians flew into our airspace" (either intentionally or unintentionally), would anyone not there at the time know? Or, if Russia DIDN'T fly into Japanese airspace but the Japanese military said they did, would anyone know? Send out the Lusitania. 99 Red Balloons go by.
cheap sensationalism
Is there something more to this article about the Russians chasing down a trawler ship flagged out of Sirra Leone???? Intel gathering?
Russian border guards opened fire on a Sierra Leone-flagged trawler in the Sea of Okhotsk after an eight-hour chase, forcing it to stop, security officials reported on Tuesday.
The vessel failed to respond when ordered to stop by the Federal Security Service (FSB) patrol ship Argal.
“The unknown ship failed to answer the radio call urging her to stop, but sped up and headed towards the outer limit of Russia’s exclusive economic zone,” a regional branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) frontier directorate said in a statement.The border guards chased the trawler, Sapsan, before calling an FSB An-72 patrol aircraft. The Sapsan initially slowed down, but as the patrol vessel approached, it sped up again.The FSB aircraft was forced to fire warning shots to stop the Sapsan, security officials said.
“The plane fired warning shots three times, but the captain risked his crew’s lives and continued the race,” security officials said.
The vessel was escorted to the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where its captain faces administrative charges.
http://en.rian.ru/crime/20130129/179101542.html
And this on the fishing trawler/collection connection
http://piperbayard.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/trawling-for-secrets-soviet-...
http://www.petropavlovsk.net/en/operations.html
Wars are one of the best excuses for money printing. Nothing like a nice little war to get the patriotic juices flowing and distract the masses from the collapsing currency. Looks like Abe knows this.
Wars are for the enrichment of the Rothchilds oops, banksters AND to reduce the non-jew population...
www.synagoguerising.com
Did you see the insignia on the Russian fighter jet, that violated Japanese air space?
Russian air force returning to red Soviet Star as insignia on planes and helicopters.
?? ???????? ? ????????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ?????????http://izvestia.ru/news/543587
And then this:
Original document that proclaimed the death of the Soviet Union is 'lost'.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/soviet-union-death-announcement...
WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS....
There is no dispute, the Russians own/occupy the Kuriles for the moment, the Japanese want them back, (they used to be uncontested Japan territory).
The Russians need cash, technology, and oil markets there's plenty of space to craft a "deal" between the Russians and Japs, ie Russians give up the Islands in exchange for cash and prizes.
Russia has a population problem they can't occupy the territory they have they also need cash and technology, a corporate merger would be in their interests.
Re: "they used to be uncontested Japan territory" - southern part of Sakhalin and the Kurils were part of Japanese territory 1905 - 1945. Russia lost those territories in Japanese-Russian war of 1904-1905, and gained them back at the end of 2nd World War in 1945. Prior to 1905, these were mostly uninhabited and in Russian zone of influence since circa 1600s. All ancient history, though, otherwise lots of land will have to be returned to its "original rightful owners" - American Indians and Australian Aboriginies come to mind.
Shinzo Abe's in the D-D-D-DANGER ZONE!!!