By train from Tokyo to Moscow? Russia suggests new railroad links

Posted on : 2016-10-04 16:21 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Possibility for Japan-Russia cooperation comes up ahead of Putin’s December visits, but tech challenges remain
Initiative to connect Japan to Siberia by train
Initiative to connect Japan to Siberia by train

With plans to connect North and South Korea by railroad postponed indefinitely, there is now a possibility that a railroad linking Tokyo and Siberia via Hokkaido may open up first.

This is one of the ideas offered to promote economic cooperation between Russia and Japan before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Japan in mid-December.

On Oct. 3, Japanese newspaper the Sankei Shimbun said that the Russian government has reportedly approached Japan about extending the Trans-Siberian Railway across Sakhalin Island to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. If this railroad were built, Russia believes that it would promote not only logistics between the two countries but also tourism and people-to-people exchange, the Sankei said.

With a length of 9,297 km, the Trans-Siberian Railway is the world‘s longest rail line, stretching from Moscow to Vladivostok. Russia has been pushing for the construction of the Trans-Korean Main Line, which would extend the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Korean Peninsula and link Vladivostok with Busan.

Amid these developments, South Korea and Russia agreed during a summit in Sep. 2008 to upgrade their bilateral relations into a “strategic partnership” and to start using a pipeline that runs through North Korea in 2015 to pump 7.5 million tons of Russian natural gas each year

But the project did not move forward because of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and the resulting chill in inter-Korean relations. In Apr. 2014, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev visited North Korea and made another proposal for a trilateral economic cooperation plan with North and South Korea focused on a natural gas pipeline linking Russia and South Korea and the construction of the Trans-Korean Main Line.

“South Korea is deferring its decision on a number of issues,” Trutnev said during an interview with Russia Focus when he visited South Korea to attend a meeting of the 15th South Korea-Russia Joint Economic Council at the end of August.

Given the lack of momentum in economic cooperation between South Korea and Russia, the Oct. 3 report in the Sankei Shimbun is being taken as a signal that Russia has chosen Japan to replace South Korea as its partner for extending the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

While connecting the Trans-Siberian Railroad with the Japanese archipelago via Sakhalin Island would likely require a major expenditure of capital, it would probably not be technically impossible.

The La Perouse Strait, which separates Sakhalin from Wakkanai, the northernmost point on Hokkaido, is 42 km in width. That is shorter than the Seikan Tunnel (53.85 km), completed in 1988, which links Hokkaido with the main Japanese island of Honshu. Furthermore, the strait separating Russia‘s Maritime Province from Sakhalin is 7 km across. If this plan were to become a reality, it would be possible to travel by train from Tokyo to Moscow.

By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

 

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