Japan: Eyes on Siberia

Even the most inscrutable Japanese businessman becomes more scrutable when he talks about Siberia, which is 35 times as large as Japan's home islands and less than 400 miles away. Mainland Siberia is one of the world's largest reservoirs of undeveloped natural resources (see map), a fact that does not fail to impress the raw material-hungry Japanese. Russia has tried without much success to make Siberia an economically profitable territory. At the same time, Japanese businessmen have had their eyes cocked on Siberia as a place where they might make a lot of money. The Russians, however, have always...

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