title: Russia's relations with China and Japan: the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region
abstract: The international politics of that time were characterized by imperialism and by the perceived need for control of territory for reasons of both military strategy and economic exploitation. The problem was that Russia and Japan were geographically close to each other and to China in North-East Asia, and problems of security between them rose from the late nineteenth century onwards. The Kuriles are made up of four islands which Moscow seized from Japan as part of the war-time Yalta agreement wit