Interview with Vasily Mikheev

Vasily Mikheev, the Director of the China and Japan Studies Centre, commented for Russia Today on the visit of Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Aso to Russia and the general state of Russian-Japanese relations.

Russia Today: What are the highlights in the relations between Russia and Japan at the moment?

Vasily Mikheev: I think that now our relationship has a chance to enter a new stage of development. My point is that after Shinzo Abe took power (the current Prime Minister of Japan, since September 2006) in Japan he started to introduce a new foreign diplomacy and the main pillars of this diplomacy are: first, Japan tries to play a more active security and political role in the world, in global affairs based on its economic achievements; second, Japan is pushing Washington to develop balanced relations with Tokyo. So, what is Shinzo Abe doing first to implement this policy? First of all, he needs to implement the development of multi-sector diplomacy, to balance increasing and improving Japan