Could Tokyo-Moscow rail link proposal be revived when Putin visits Japan this month?

A meeting in Japan later in December between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin has revived suggestions that the two nations could build a rail link that would link Tokyo with Moscow.

Similar proposals have been aired in the past but have never progressed, largely due to the anticipated cost of thousands of kilometres of tracks as well as bridges and undersea tunnels. Geopolitical tensions have also been a factor, particularly over the sovereignty of islands off northern Japan that were occupied by Soviet forces in 1945 and which Tokyo still claims sovereignty over.

In recent months, however, there has been a distinct thawing in relations between the two governments as Japan seeks to get access to development projects in the Russian Far East, notably to obtain energy resources.

Abe has also not entirely given up hope that he might convince his Russian counterpart to return at least some of the territory that Japan lost in 1945.

According to a report in the Shuksan Jitsuwa news magazine, Vladimir Yakunin, the former president of Russian Railways and a close advisor to Putin, put the proposal for a new rail link to Abe during talks in Tokyo last year.