Ex-PM Miyazawa aired doubts about China's democratization to Clinton in '93

Dec. 26, 2024

In 1993, then-Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa expressed his skepticism about China's democratization in a summit with then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, according to Japanese diplomatic documents declassified by the Foreign Ministry Thursday.

He expressed this view when Clinton asked him about the future of China in their meeting in Washington on April 16, 1993, according to the documents.

Miyazawa also called on the U.S. government to continue to accord most-favored-nation trade status to China.

Clinton, when running in the 1992 presidential election, criticized as weak the attitude of George H.W. Bush, the U.S. president at the time, toward China.

After China's bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989, Clinton took the position that it was necessary for the country to improve its human rights record in order for it to continue to receive most-favored-nation treatment.

At the summit, Clinton asked Miyazawa what he thought of China.

Miyazawa replied, "If China's economy develops, there will be plenty of room to show military ambitions."

"There is a theory that democracy will take root as living standards rise, but I am skeptical," he told Clinton.

Miyazawa also said that China would not be a threat for the time being but that it had the potential to become one.

Around the time of the summit, China was embarking on a full-scale reform and opening-up policy. While there was a focus on how Western countries would treat China, there was also a growing expectation that economic development would lead to Beijing's democratization.

Miyazawa's statement showed he did not have such an expectation.

Meanwhile, Miyazawa told Clinton, "I am in favor of granting the most-favored-nation treatment to China without any conditions. It is also important for the development of Hong Kong."

In the end, the Clinton administration extended the status to China conditionally for one year in May 1993 before renewing it unconditionally the following year.

The United States' treatment of China as a most-favored nation was discussed again at a U.S.-Japan summit held on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Tokyo in July 1993, during which Miyazawa continued to advocate the treatment. "It's done everywhere in the world," he said, according to his memoirs published in 2005.

The ministry regularly declassifies diplomatic records after 30 years. On Thursday, it made public 11 files from 1993.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/12/26/japan/politics/diplomatic-documents-miyazawa/

So Japan was responsible for China's most favored nation.