The Kuriles: the Geo-political Spanner in the Geo-economic Works

The sovereignty of the bleak Kurile islands, off northern Japan, has long been the subject of a bitter stand-off between Russia and Japan. This has not only prevented their signing a post-1945 Peace Treaty but has retarded the flow of official financial assistance and corporate investment funds across the few hundred kilometre-wide Sea of Japan. As a result the reconstruction of the Russian Far East has been made more difficult, thus exacerbating the economic and social hardship there. Examples like this should cause us to reflect on the dangers of making simplistic explanations about the spatial organisation of economic activity as well as the need to rediscover political geography.