CONFIDENTIAL
4.
Sugino said that he noted that Li Peng would visit Italy in February. Were there any plans for Chinese leaders to visit the UK? I said that we had no plans to invite Li Peng.
In confidence I could tell him that the Chinese Foreign Minister would be here in March, mainly to discuss Hong Kong, but that had not yet been announced.
NORTH KOREA
Japan thought that even if North Korea signed an IAEA Safeguards Agreement shortly, as they expected, there would still be a need for caution. There were likely to be loopholes the Koreans could exploit. I agreed.
5.
PEACEKEEPING LEGISLATION
6.
He said this could still go through in 1992 but only if the political will was there. The legislation had been mishandled, first by the bureaucracy, and later by the Prime Minister who had failed to kowtow sufficiently to the Party bosses and seek their cooperation.
7.
He
I said that the impasse was disappointing for Japan's friends, perhaps particularly in respect of Cambodia. said that Japan would still make a substantial financial contribution to the UN operation there. He knew nothing of Mr Akashi, the UN Under Secretary just appointed as the Secretary General's Special Representative on Cambodia.
VIETNAM
8.
He explained that Japan would be sending a low level economic mission to Vietnam in February or March to discuss economic cooperation. The Japanese had been over the ground carefully with the US Secretary of State to ensure that there were no objections from that quarter. After a long explanation, Baker had just said "thank you", so they had concluded that they could go ahead. Would Britain have any
views on such a mission?
9.
I said that our view was positive; our position differed from that of the Americans. A Cabinet Minister had visited Vietnam at the end of last year. Lord Caithness was there now. We wanted to see more foreign aid going to Vietnam and thought the United States were moving too slowly on normalisation. The US attitude to the IFIS was particularly disappointing.
JANAAX
/PRESIDENT BUSH'S VISIT TO JAPAN
CONFIDENTIAL