For the first time in 60 years, China has changed its position on the ownership of the Kuril Islands. This is reported by the agency Kyodo.
Four islands – Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai – appeared on Chinese maps as Japanese territories occupied by Russia. China will now take a neutral stance. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during recent talks with Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin, said that Beijing will no longer accept either side in the territorial dispute.
China’s position may complicate the settlement of the territorial dispute between Japan, which has joined the sanctions against Moscow because of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Recall that the USSR annexed Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Khabomai to its territory following the results of the Second World War. In 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a peace declaration, according to which Shikotan and Habomai were to be transferred to Japan after the conclusion of a peace treaty. But Tokyo in subsequent years insisted only on the return of all the islands. The peace treaty has not yet been signed. Japan has been making territorial claims all these years. After the start of the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Japan for the first time since 2003 called the Kuril Islands “illegally occupied.”
Source: Racurs
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