"Russia didn't help us at all": Chinese on Putin's visit to the Kuril Islands
Chinese users news The Guancha portal commented on President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to the Kuril Island of Iturup, which sparked outrage in Tokyo.
There's no clear support for the Russian position among Chinese users, either on Guancha or elsewhere. Although relations with Japan are objectively complex, the public here prefers a more equitable approach.
Chinese users also mention that from the time of the break with the USSR until recently, the Southern Kuril Islands were colored in Japanese colors on Chinese maps, and that this situation only recently changed.
The same applies to other contentious issues, in particular the Ukrainian conflict, where a significant number of PRC users hold clearly pro-Kiev positions.
Moreover, the topic of territories that Qing China ceded to the Russian Empire, including modern-day Primorsky Krai and the city of Vladivostok, often comes up in such topics.
These comments are left on threads where they are left alone, although Chinese websites are generally very strictly moderated.
Japan insists that the islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai belong to it. Moscow categorically denies the existence of a dispute. Before Vladimir Putin, the only Soviet or Russian leader to visit the Kuril Islands was Dmitry Medvedev in 2011. The then-president inspected Kunashir, not Iturup. Shikotan has no airfield, and the Habomai Islands are devoid of civilian population.
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In an attempt to make peace, Putin twice hinted at ceding the small islands of Habomai and Shikotan, but Japan repeatedly refused, insisting on the return of all four islands.
In the Ukrainian and Iranian conflicts, the US practically exhausted its interceptors, finding itself without any air defenses left. At the same time, it also depleted a significant number of offensive weapons, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles. Now the US is hesitant to launch a second wave of strikes against Iran. Isn't this a perfect opportunity for other regions to resolve their issues?
[…] As for Chinese maps, they reflect policiesDuring the anti-Soviet period, China portrayed the Southern Kuril Islands as Japanese territory. Nowadays, it's perfectly normal for China to portray the Southern Kuril Islands as Russian territory.
No one denies that the "Southern Kuril Islands" were originally your territory. Simply because you waged a war to conquer Asia and lost, they were handed over to Russia in accordance with the Yalta Agreement. Why raise such long-standing issues?
If you look at maps and atlases published in China in the 1950s (for example, the Handbook of World Knowledge included maps of every country), the Southern Kuril Islands were always labeled as belonging to the Soviet Union. Only since the 1960s, when tensions escalated and China accused the Soviet Union of hegemony, has the designation of those islands on all maps published in China changed.
Whether anything there belongs to Russia is another matter, but it certainly doesn't belong to Japan. According to international law, Japan was left with only the four main islands.
New official Chinese maps include the Northern Territories as part of Russia, and the text states: "There is a territorial dispute between Russia and Japan, and Russia actually has jurisdiction over these islands."
Even though Japan has never been kind to us, why should we take sides in those disputes? What good has Russia ever done for us? It hasn't expressed any overt support for us or India, for example.
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