Ms Yoriko Koike had served as minister of defence in the cabinet of current prime minister Shinzo Abe between July and August 2007. Yet as minister of Okinawa and the Northern Territories in 2004-2006, she had a deep insight in the territorial dispute with Russia over the resource-rich Kurile islands north of Japan's island of Hokkaido. There is to date no peace-treaty, that formally ends the Second World War and settle the status of the four Russian-held islands. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yelzin had held talks with his Japanese counterpart. Then came Vladimir Putin in 2000, and today the two sides still keep on talking.

Russia is refusing to hand back the Kurile islands and it hasn't forgotten the humiliation suffered in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, which broke out as a result of conflicts in China and Korea. The Japanese besieged the Russian stronghold of Port Arthur, in China and sank several Russian warships. The fleet, steaming all the way from Western Russia, arrived only to find itself destroyed by Admiral Togo at the battle of Tsushima.

In light of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Ms Koike expresses her concern about "Russia's expansionism". It's quite unlikely that Russia would invade any territory in Asia's Pacific Northwest, a region in which China, Japan and the Soviet Union had jostled for influence for decades. In fact Japan's rise to power had its victory in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese to thank for.

Ms Koke criticises " China’s response to the crisis in Ukraine", showing "the hollowness of its adherence to this principle" of "non-interference. It is true that China could benefit from the stand-off between Russia and the West. Beijing sees Russia's resurgence an advantage, as it would create a multi-polar world and relieve China's strategic pressure. It also hopes that economic sanctions against Russia will help speed up its negotiations with Moscow on energy co-operation and building a strategic partnership.

On the other hand China is wary of supporting Putin's annexation of Crimea, as it could be seen as turning a blind eye to separatism. It abstained from voting against Russia in the UN Security Council, yet Vladimir Putin thanked China for its support during his speech after the referendum, in which he defended his move. Indeed he was very isolated and felt compelled to tell the world that he still had support. Despite the unlikelihood that Russian troops will mass troops on Japanese territory, Putin has become an unpredictable figure in a world, that seems no longer be governeed by international law, but by "the barrel of the gun".

