Japan and China will divide Vladivostok between them.

Sanae Takaichi and her Liberal Democratic Party won 316 out of 465 seats. Together with their coalition partner, she has the support of 351 members of parliament.  

She can enact policies in Japan’s interest without opposition. Japan signed a collaboration agreement in 1980 with the province of Heilongjiang. In 1978, China opened up economically and Japan established Official Development Assistance loans for the infrastructure of the region. It repatriated the war orphans mainly from Fangzheng County (4,500 Japanese orphans). There was an attempt of historic reconciliation through study of archives. Universities in Heilongjiang started cooperating with Japanese ones, especially Niigata (?)].

Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, now has over 10 million inhabitants. In 1980, it had less than 2 million.  The GDP was under 4 billion renminbi in 1978; in 2025, it was 618 billion renminbi. In 2019, the China (Heilongjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) was established. This is a veritable powerhouse. It would benefit from more direct trade with Japan.

There was only one obstacle: Russia. China has no access to the Sea of Japan. The only port which would connect Heilongjiang and Japan is Vladivostok. The population of Heilongjiang is 30 million, the population of Japan is 131 million. Vladivostok’s is 600,000.

Vladivostok is the problem. China has already changed the name of Vladivostok (Russian for ‘rule of the east’) to Hǎishēnwǎi (海參崴) on many of its maps, pointing to future economic (and maybe political) annexation. Since June 2023, China has full access to the port of Vladivostok.

China has often condemned the European occupation of Chinese land by the so-called ‘unequal treatises’. In Europe, one often neglects to say that the largest territory lost by China was to Russia. The Treaty of Aigun in 1858 ceded over 600,000 square kilometres. That is twenty times more land than Taiwan controls. The president of Taiwan in September 2024 said that if China claims Taiwan, it should also look to annex the land lost under the Treaty of Aigun. The argument is not irrelevant since Taiwan was under direct mainland control from 1683 to 1895. The region of Vladivostok, Manchuria, had been part of China for around two thousand years.

The future is set: Japan will increase collaboration with Heilongjiang province. To achieve this China and Japan together will have to expel Russia from Vladivostok.

South Korea has also shown much interest in Harbin, and Heilongjiang province. This indicates that East Asia is preparing for a giant economic hub centred round commerce flowing through Vladivostok, between China, Japan, Korea and, more importantly, without Russia.