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Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

June 29th, 2007

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A Giant Passes

Kiichi Miyazawa, Japanese Prime Minister from 1991-1993 and minister of finance in 1987 and from 1999 to 2002, has died at age 89. Fluent in English, Miyazawa is probably best known in Japan for overseeing perhaps the worst period of modern Japan-US relations. In the US, he is probably best known for getting barfed on by President Bush I.

miyazawag8.jpg

Miyazawa was giant of Japanese politics and a notable world leader in the post-Cold War world, although of notably smaller physical stature than his peers.

Comments to this entry

Aceface
June 29, 2007
7:28 am
Kiichi Miyazawa is not just a political big shot but also a gentleman.
I heard him talking to students in English at U.S-Japan student conference at Iwojima(now put back to the original name Iwo-to)in '95.
His English wasn't bad for his generation.I think his daughter is married to someone from the state department and was working at the embassy in Tokyo.
Curzon
June 29, 2007
8:00 am
Aceface, I haven't seen you since MF went on hiatus for 20 days. Thanks for stopping by.

I heard a clip of Miyazawa speaking at the National Press Club in DC in the early 1990s, and his English was amazing for a Japanese guy of his age, and certainly better than the vast majority of Japanese people I've met, with certain notable exceptions such as present company.
Younghusband
June 29, 2007
9:17 am
Furthermore, we have Miyazawa to thank for his PKO bill which passed despite an "ox walk" in 1992, leading to Japan's participation in peacekeeping and a steady maturation of its foreign policy. (Can you guess what I have been reading about this past week?)
Kinney
June 29, 2007
9:17 pm
I am amazed by how young Clinton looks in that picture.
alec
June 29, 2007
9:39 pm
In the US, he is probably best known for getting barfed on by President Bush I.

Perfect.
Kurt9
June 29, 2007
10:32 pm
I was living in Japan when Bush I barfed on Miyazawa in 1992. I thought it hillarious. I also thought that Dan Quale might end up as president, which would not have been so hillarious.

I remember how Miyazawa talked "tough" when he became PM in 1991 and, later, in 1992. This was when the Japanese were still barmy as the bubble was still going on. Japan's economy settled into the long recession in 1993 with the barminess being slowly replaced by a Brit-like "what can be done" futilism.
Kurt9
June 29, 2007
10:33 pm
I mean "fatalism", not "futilism".
Aceface
June 30, 2007
10:58 am
Kurt 9:
You aren't talking about "american workers work ethic"thing,Are you?
Because I remember that AP had reported the news by editing the soundbite to look Miyazawa's comment inflammatory than it really was.
He was saying something like"It is said among the skeptics that the American power is declining,as seen in american work ethics are lower than the average of our country's,but America is the country of many potential and we shouldn't be rush to make such aregument"
This is not the exact of what he said but pretty much close to what he actually had said.