Takashi Kurai, Japan’s ambassador to Ukraine, arrived in Kyiv for assignment in January. But he wanted to take several months to meet people, travel the country and gain a better understanding of what’s happening before giving interviews.
That time arrived for the Kyiv Post on July 10, when Kurai, a 38-year veteran of his country’s Foreign Ministry, met with the newspaper for its traditional World in Ukraine feature, which focuses on Ukraine’s bilateral relationships with other nations.
Kurai’s first posting was to the United Kingdom in 1981. Three years later, after immersing himself in the Russian language, he found himself in Moscow — where one of his vivid early memories was the March 1985 state funeral of General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, the last dignitary to be buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
10 years in Russia
It was the first of his four postings in Moscow, for a total of 10 years until 2015, when he got his first ambassadorship, to Pakistan, where he stayed until arriving in Kyiv. According to the Japanese Embassy’s website, he is the ninth ambassador to Ukraine. Japan did not station an ambassador in Kyiv until 1993.
He speaks Japanese, English and Russian fluently — and is now intently studying the Ukrainian language, which he wants to master.
During his Moscow stints, Kurai made it to Ukraine three times, plus he paid close attention to events in Ukraine during the EuroMaidan Revolution, which ended Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych’s reign on Feb. 22, 2014.
“This country is very much familiar to me. I’m very happy to be here as an ambassador,” he said. “Another reason why I’m very happy is that I have been working for a long time in the former Soviet Union. This is the hometown of the whole Slavic world. I am sure I can learn a lot from this country.”
His Soviet and Russian experiences meant that he was not too surprised that Russia invaded and illegally seized Crimea and launched a war in the eastern Donbas five years ago. “I have seen the whole long history of what was going on involving Russia,” he said. “One of the problems is that, for Russia, they tend to see the other (former Soviet) countries as part of the bigger, larger empire.”
Japan also has a territorial dispute with Russia over the Northern Territories, four islands north of Japan that the Soviets seized after World War II and have not returned. Russia claims the territories are part of its Kuril Islands off the southern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East, even though in 1855 Russia acknowledged them as Japanese territories. No formal peace treaty after World War II was signed between Tokyo and Moscow.
The Northern Territories dispute is different than the Ukrainian one, the ambassador said.
“Those islands have never been the territory of Russia and the Soviet Union,” Kurai said. “Whereas here, and in Europe, there have been a lot of changes of the borders.”
Supports sanctions
But Japan will remain unwavering in its insistence that internationally recognized borders should be respected and, as a member of the Group of Seven democracies, it will keep agreed-on sanctions in place against Russia until it returns Crimea and other seized Ukrainian territories back to Kyiv’s control.
“Ukraine is, of course, an independent sovereign country with a recognized border,” the ambassador said. “I do respect the people who are here who have been fighting for the freedom and independence of this country.”
As for how to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to call off the war, Japan has no fresh ideas beyond the Minsk peace agreements that call for Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukrainian territory. “All I can say is we do hope the war will end as soon as possible.”
Japan, with the world’s third-largest economy, stands alone among Asian nations in supporting the West’s sanctions against Russia.
Impressions so far
Kurai made his first visit outside of Kyiv to the war zone in the eastern Donbas. Japan has given at least $50 million in humanitarian aid to victims of Russia’s war. He’s also been to the closed Chornobyl power plant, which exploded in 1986. He traveled also to Zhytomyr, the provincial capital of 266,000 people located 140 kilometers west of Kyiv, and to Kremenchuk, the Poltava Oblast city of 225,000 people located 327 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. It is the headquarters of Japan Tobacco International, one of the largest cigarette manufacturers in Ukraine. He plans to visit western Ukraine in the autumn.
Besides the “very beautiful” nature, “what is very important for me is that people are so hospitable and gentle and kind to us,” he said. “I am very much happy to see that people seem to have a good feeling for Japan and the Japanese people.” When he’s not working, he said, he golfed in Pakistan while, so far in Kyiv, he and his wife can be found strolling through the Botanical Garden near the University metro station and his official residence on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard.
He is also enamored by the Ukrainian flag, which he noted is simple and devoid of ideological meanings, like Japan’s red circle and white backdrop depicting the Land of the Rising Sun. Ukraine’s two equal-sized horizontal bands represent blue skies above a yellow field of grain or sunflowers.
“Here it’s something universal,” he said. “The same as in the case of the Japanese flag — the rising sun. No ideology there.”
Big donor
Besides support for Western sanctions against Russia and humanitarian assistance to war-torn Donbas, Japan stands out as a significant donor to Ukraine: Nearly $2 billion in grants and loans since the EuroMaidan Revolution.
The biggest project is the $1 billion low-interest loan to Ukraine for overhauling Kyiv’s Bortnytska sewage treatment plant to clean the Dnipro River, Europe’s fourth-longest river and the primary source of drinking water for Ukrainians.
“It’s important for environmental matters and from an ecological point of view,” Kurai said. “We have started the tender process now and, probably by autumn, we will be able to close the tender and hopefully, start construction work as soon as possible.”
Another big infrastructure project that Japan supports is building a bridge in Mykolayiv to ease congestion on the M14 highway that runs through five southern oblasts, connecting Odesa to the Russian border near the Azov Sea. “This road is strategically very important for the transport of Ukrainians,” he said.
While Japan “can’t say everything is good” in the way its money is being spent in Ukraine, “mostly it’s being well used.”
Japan has also supported changes in the banking sector to make it more transparent, as well as craft a strategy for cleaning up the large portfolio of non-performing loans, particularly among the large state-owned banks that account for half of the sector. Japan has also assisted the new patrol police with the donation of more than 1,500 Japanese-made cars and given money and lent expertise to improve medical care.
Moreover, Japan believes that “independent mass media is very important for democracy” and has given $2 million for the purchase of new equipment for Ukraine’s public television station, which is watched by less than 1 percent of viewers. The focus is on public media, he said. “We have no idea of supporting any private media.”
Kurai said Japan will pay close attention to Ukrainians suffering from Russia’s war, through visits, financial support for replacing or rebuilding damaged homes, and help to encourage small-and-medium-sized businesses.
“The tragedy is still there and people are very much suffering in their daily lives,” he said. “I do like to go there as often as possible and I see with my own eyes what could be done.”
Taking business pulse
Kurai meets regularly with leaders of the 38 Japanese businesses in Ukraine. The biggest complaint remains the lack of a trusted judiciary. “Quite often they complain about the judicial process, which should be transparent and fair,” he said. “But the judicial system here has been improving.” He looks forward to the launch of the High Anti-Corruption Court, which President Volodymyr Zelensky said will start hearing cases in September. He also takes hope in the selection of 75 new Ukrainian Supreme Court judges.
Great potential
Kurai cited three sectors as particularly promising — manufacturing, agriculture and information technology — if Ukraine achieves political stability. “People here are very qualified,” he said.
Yazaki and Fujukura are examples of Japanese automobile electronics components manufacturers working in western Ukraine. Such firms employ more than 6,000 people altogether.
The ambassador also cited the Japanese firm, Thirdwave Corporation, which last year opened grain storage terminals with the capacity to hold 16,000 tons. It is located in Tarashcha, a Kyiv Oblast city of 10,000 people located 125 kilometers south of the capital. He cited the project as an example of Japan’s interest in Ukraine’s vibrant agricultural sector, which accounts for nearly 20 percent of the nation’s economic output.
IT is another Ukrainian sector in which Japanese interest is high.
Bridging distances
Tokyo is 8,200 kilometers away from Kyiv. Only about 200 Japanese citizens live in Ukraine. And, before last year, few Ukrainians traveled to Japan. With the easing of visa requirements last year, 3,000 Ukrainians — a 30 percent increase from the year before — traveled to Japan, which is undergoing a tourist boom.
A number of elements go into a nation’s attractiveness as a tourist destination, he said — culture, food, people, cost of living and ease of transport. Japan is evidently succeeding: In 2017, according to the Japan Times, the nation had 28 million tourists — twice as many as Ukraine, according to the World Tourism Organization — and Tokyo is likely to reach its goal of attracting 40 million visitors in 2020.
The last top-level visit between the two nations took place in 2016, when then-President Petro Poroshenko met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo. But Zelensky will have a chance to meet Abe if he accepts an invitation to attend the accession ceremony of Naruhito, who succeeded his father, Akihito, as Japanese emperor. “We do hope that he will visit,” the ambassador said.
He also expressed hope that a joint economic meeting between the two nations will take place within the next year.
Kurai expects to enjoy his stay, which typically lasts three or four years for a Japanese ambassador. And Ukrainian friendliness is a big reason why.
“I feel sometimes that I am living in Japan,” the ambassador said of Ukrainian hospitality. “I am not at all lonely.”
