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 the Chinese Communist Party after the Tiananmen crackdown in China on June 4, 1989, and opposed the imposition of sanctions on the Communist Party by members of the Western Group of Seven countries.
The Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) reported Wednesday that the Japanese government’s Foreign Ministry released 26 volumes of diplomatic documents from around 1989, with a total of about 10,600 pages. The contents include Emperor Showa’s funeral ceremony/ Emperor Akihito’s enthronement ceremony, the diplomatic contents of the Japan-US and Japan-UK summits, the Tiananmen Incident, the Asia-Pacific Cooperation Organization (APEC, etc.), the Cambodia Peace Conference, the 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.” At the same time, however, the document said, “This development is in principle a domestic issue in China with political and social institutions and values different from ours, and even condemnation of the Chinese Communist Party 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 recalled that the difference between Japan and the other G-7 countries, which increased their criticism of the CCP after the Tiananmen Square incident, was “very clear.” On July 15, 1989, the G-7 countries, including Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and West Germany, issued a declaration condemning the CCP. However, it did not mention new joint sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party, 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, that Japan 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 the Chinese Communist Party, while the other six countries pushed for such a statement out of necessity. According to the documents, under pressure the Japanese side agreed to issue a declaration on the condition that it include a sentence referring to the importance of avoiding isolating China.
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, Japanese government Foreign Ministry officials countered that “we also regret the shooting in Tiananmen, but it is not impossible to grant economic assistance to a non-democratic country when it is difficult to apply the same standards to China, whose values and institutions are different from those of Western countries economic assistance”.
In September 1989, during a dinner meeting with the Japanese ambassador to the UK, Kazuo Chiba, Margaret Thatcher said that when she consulted with the then Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping, Deng was completely unable to understand that the British government must also obey the law. She also argued that “if the country wants it, make the law that way”. I think the root cause of the recent problems in China comes from that kind of thinking,” the paper said.
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