According to diplomatic documents released by The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Archives on Dec. 23, the Japanese government decided on the same day to adopt an amicable response to China after the Tiananmen crackdown on June 4, 1989, and opposed sanctions imposed on China by members of the Western Group of Seven.
The Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) reported Wednesday that the Japanese government’s Foreign Ministry released 26 volumes of diplomatic documents from 1989, totaling about 10,600 pages, on that day. The contents include Emperor Showa’s funeral ceremony/ Emperor Akihito’s enthronement ceremony, diplomatic contents of Japan-U.S. and Japan-Korea summits, Tiananmen Incident, Asia-Pacific Cooperation Organization (APEC, etc.), Cambodia Peace Conference, 15th G-7 Summit, etc. It covers important diplomatic affairs during the year. The diplomatic documents released this time include records related to the Tiananmen Incident and also contain the Japanese government’s decision to adopt an amicable response approach to China on the day of the incident. The document states, “Japan shares the universal values of freedom and democracy with Western countries, and the Chinese government’s use of force to suppress students and ordinary people, resulting in numerous casualties, is something we cannot tolerate from a humanitarian standpoint.” However, the paper also said that “this development is in principle a domestic issue in China whose political and social institutions and values are different from ours, and even condemnation of China has certain limitations.”
The paper also says that “to give China the impression that the West is unanimously attacking it would instead drive China into isolation, which is not the best policy in the long run or in the larger picture.” Thus, the document clearly states that it opposes the unanimous adoption of sanctions against China. The paper further states that “China’s adherence to its reform and opening-up policy is also in the interest of the West, and based on this view, it is necessary to urge China to show that it will become acceptable to the international community as well, and that countries should gradually repair their relations with China.” In an interview, Yuji Miyamoto, who served as Japan’s ambassador to China and was involved in relevant contacts with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time, said, “Our position is not to isolate China, which is continuing its policy of reform and opening up.”
Miyamoto Yuji recalled that the difference between Japan and the other G-7 countries, which increased their criticism of China after the Tiananmen Square incident, was “very clear. “On July 15, 1989, the G-7 group of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and West Germany issued a declaration condemning China. However, it made no mention of new joint sanctions against China, reflecting Tokyo’s position. Other declassified diplomatic documents on Japan’s attitude toward the G-7 summit, including one dated June 19, 1989, indicate that the Japanese side was reluctant to participate in any declaration on China or, if one was issued, preferred not to mention China by name. The document shows that at a preparatory meeting before the G-7 summit on July 7 of that year, Japan said it did not want to adopt a declaration condemning China, while the other six countries pushed for such a statement out of necessity. According to the document, under pressure the Japanese side agreed to issue a declaration on condition that it included a sentence mentioning the importance of avoiding isolating China.
Regarding the contents of the document, Akio Takahara, an expert on modern Chinese politics and professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, analyzed that “Japan believes that it is in the interest of Japan, the Asia-Pacific region and the world to assist China in implementing reform and opening up so that China as a whole remains stable, and that Japan will not change this basic understanding despite the Tiananmen Square incident. The contents of the document may reflect the above judgment.” But he added, “No country thinks China will expand its power, (military and economic), in such a short period of time.”
In November 1990, Japan resumed loans to China totaling more than 800 billion yen ($7.7 billion), after they had been effectively put on hold following the Tiananmen Incident. On June 15 of the same year following Tiananmen, when senior U.S. government officials expressed concern about Japan’s granting of economic assistance to China, a Japanese government Foreign Ministry official countered that “we also regret that the shooting took place in Tiananmen, but it is not that we cannot give non-democratic countries the same standards that are difficult to apply to China, whose values and institutions are different from those of Western countries economic assistance”.
In September 1989, during a dinner meeting with Japanese Ambassador to the UK Kazuo Chiba, Margaret Thatcher said that when she consulted with then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, Deng was completely unable to understand that the British government also had to obey the law. She also argued that “if the country wants it, make the law that way”. The paper said that Mrs. Thatcher said that “I think the root cause of the recent problems in China comes from this kind of thinking.
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