Al Jazeera
Sakhalin : Russia's East Asia trump card
Jon Letman / August 26,2011
Sakhalin: Russia's East Asia trump card
The energy-rich Sakhalin Island is seen as a new gateway for the ever
growing demand for natural resources.
_Jon Letman_
(http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/profile/jon-letman.html) Last
Modified: 26 Aug 2011
Sakhalin: Russia's East Asia trump card
The energy-rich Sakhalin Island is seen as a new gateway for the ever
growing demand for natural resources.
_Jon Letman_
(http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/profile/jon-letman.html) Last
Modified: 26 Aug 2011
Downtown Yuzhno, on Sakhalin Island, is the heart of the
resource-rich archipelago [Brian Tibbets]
The northeast Asian equation, with its complex matrix of rising economic
power in South Korea, an erratic and unpredictable North Korea, a Japan beset
by uncertainty and lingering calamity - and the undisputed titan, China -
remains incomplete without understanding the one card in the deck that is
all too often overlooked: Russia.
With its growing global role as a major energy exporter, Sakhalin Island,
in Russia's Far East region, has become one of its most valuable but least
recognised geographic assets - and a prime example of why Russia is an
increasingly dominant player in Far East Asian politics and resource
exploitation.Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is
transported by
tanker from the Sakhalin-2 LNG plant [Jon Letman]
Sixty-six years after the end of World War II, having never signed a formal
peace agreement, Russia and Japan remain technically in a state of war.
During the closing days of that conflict, Russia settled an old score when it
reclaimed control of the 948 km Sakhalin Island just above Japan's
northernmost island, Hokkaido.
This fish-shaped island, Russia's largest, occupies more land than Ireland
or Sri Lanka and is richly endowed with timber, fish, coal, oil and gas.
Just 43 kms from Japan, Sakhalin has been a point of contention between the
two Asian powers since they first began competing for control in the early
19th century.
After the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05), Japan gained control of the
southern half of Sakhalin (which it called Karafuto) below the 50°N parallel,
as
demarcated under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan occupied
southern Sakhalin until 1945.
Sakhalin Oblast (district) includes the northern and southern Kuril
Islands, an archipelago of 56 volcanic islands which arc northeasterly across
the
Sea of Okhotsk, from Hokkaido towards Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.
For more than six decades, relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been
dogged by the dispute over four of the southern Kurils - Kunashiri, Shikotan
and Etorofu and the Habomai islets - which Japan calls the Northern
Territories.
Political tensions ramped up after President Dmitry Medvedev became the
first Russian leader to visit the Kurils in 2010. Medvedev called for Russia
to "consolidate its presence" in the islands and for an increased military
presence with advanced weapons. This came in advance of a recent
announcement by Russia's defence minister that two brigades would be sent to
"defend
the nation's interests" (read: energy resources) in the Arctic region.
Tokyo responded to the Kuril announcement with vocal protests which
prompted a sharp rebuke from Moscow. Nothing indicates Japan - or its ally the
United States, which supports Japan in the Kuril dispute - would consider an
armed conflict over the islands, yet Japan remains adamant that the small,
remote, but resource-rich (though grindingly poor) islands are rightfully
Japanese territory.
A rising East Asian power
Skirting one of the world's most rapidly developing regions, home to the
world's second and third largest economies (China and Japan), Sakhalin Oblast
is poised to partner and compete with its Pacific Rim neighbours. Sakhalin
Island, where the region's wealth and development are concentrated,
represents Russia's potential - both in terms of its growing affluence and,
more
broadly, trade, energy production and forest and ocean resources.
In an age of soaring energy needs and the rise of economic giants led by
China, India and Brazil, the world is hungry not only for Sakhalin's fish and
seafood, but for its oil and gas.
Sakhalin has an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE),
making it one of Russia's most important oil and gas producing regions and a
prime target for foreign investment.
Much of Sakhalin's oil and gas is exported to South Korea, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and the United States. These vast
resources
drive Sakhalin's largest energy extraction projects: Sakhalin-1 and
Sakhalin-2, both overseen by international consortiums.
Sakhalin-1 is operated by Exxon Neftegas Ltd - along with Russia's
Rosneft
