Highlights Japan’s ongoing understanding of the situation in China following the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, Japan’s China policy, implications of U.S.-China relations to Japan, future China policy, and an explanation regarding Japan’s future economic cooperation with China.

Main points of Japanese Minister’s remarks that took place at Japan-United States Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on the situation in China following the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. It answers key questions on Japan’s policy towards China on diplomacy and economic cooperation along with implications of a deterioration in U.S.-China relations following Tiananmen Square.

This resolution on combatting “ideological sabotage” lumps Chinese ideological propaganda, Western propaganda operations, international human rights and humanitarian relief activities, and religious radio broadcasts and religious missionary activities all together with the spreading influence of Western culture and music in Vietnam as part of a vast, insidious effort by Vietnam’s enemies designed to corrupt Vietnam’s society and to weaken its “revolutionary” spirit in order to cause the overthrow or collapse of the Vietnamese Communist Party and government. 

The over-the-top rhetoric used in this resolution illustrates the widespread paranoia that infected the upper ranks of Vietnam’s Party and security apparatus during this period of the Cold War.  It was not until six years later, in December 1986, that the pressures of growing internal dissension (even within the Party), the country’s desperate economic situation, and reductions in Soviet military and economic to Vietnam resulted in the decision by the Communist Party’s 6th Party Congress to shift to a policy of reforms, called “Renovation” [Đổi Mới] reforms and to new Vietnamese efforts to normalize relations with China and the United States.

This record contains summaries of: (1) the tête-à-tête meeting between President Clinton and Prime Minister Mizazawa; (2) a small group meeting involving the President and Prime Minister, as well as several senior members of the US and Japanese cabinets; and (3) an expanded working lunch. Topics of discussion included U.S.-Japan strategic and economic relations, climate change, the Uruguay Round, policies towards Russia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, and China, and Japan's status at the United Nations. Various portions of the document were withheld, including an entire section on North Korea.

Zhou Enlai and Trần Văn Thanh discuss the war in South Vietnam, Singapore's departure from the Federation of Malaya, and prospects for the Second Asian-African Conference.

Zhou Enlai criticises the developmental aid policies and practices of the United States and the Soviet Union. He and Sedky also discuss Chinese aid to Egypt.

Zhou and Enlai and Ali Sabry discuss developments in Algeria, prospects for the Second Asian-African Conference, Egypt's tenuous food situation and trade relations with countries such as Argentina, Canada, and the US, and the latest news from Vietnam.

Ishibashi Tanzan, the former Japanese Prime Minister, made a comment on his visit to China, saying "I believe that we need not rush Sino-Japanese relations."

Mao and Matak discuss Western imperialist collaboration with India, attempts to overthrow the Cambodian government, and the situation in Vietnam, among other topics.