Despite heavy diplomatic pressure from the Soviet Union, Japan decided in mid-January of this year to finally conclude a peace treaty with Russia's archrival China, formally ending World War II. The move heralds a much closer relationship between Japan and the People's Republic in the years ahead. The Japanese were on the verge of signing a similar pact with the Soviet Union, but rejected the idea after a heavy-handed last-minute visit by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. The Japanese felt that Gromyko's purpose was to drive a "wedge" between Japan and China. Ironically, what Gromyko succeeded in doing was to drive a wedge –between Japan and Russia. The Japanese have now abandoned their traditional "policy of equidistance" whereby they tried to maintain equally good relations with both Moscow and Peking. The Soviet Union is particularly irked at a part in the text of the treaty which binds both Japan and China to resist any attempt on the part of a third nation (meaning, obviously, the Russians) to achieve "hegemony" (or domination) in Asia, This means that both Japan and China are now on record as opposing Soviet expansion in Asia and the Pacific.
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