CONFIDENTIAL
An election has been called for 18 July. The campaign will have started on 4 July. The LDP are likely to do badly, but
will remain the largest single party. Depending on the
election result they may form a coalition with the break-away Hata party and others, or be faced by a coalition of opposition parties led by Hata, the common strand of which
will be the promotion of political reform. Whatever the
outcome it is very unlikely that Mr Miyazawa, whose name is
most closely associated with the political reform debacle,
will be Prime Minister at the time of our Prime Minister's
visit to Japan in September.
UK/Japan Bilateral Relations
Political Dialoque
Over recent years we have as a matter of policy steadily built
up our political dialogue with Japan. This now covers almost
all the major world issues, on most of which we see eye to
eye. One of the priorities of our Presidency was to enhance
the process of political dialogue between the EC and Japan.
During his visit to Japan in April, the Foreign Secretary
stressed our intention of further developing the bilateral
dialogue. He reaffirmed our commitment to annual
consultations between Foreign Ministers and agreed with the
Japanese that there should be annual exchanges between PUSS
and DUSS of the two Foreign Ministries.
The Prime Minister may wish to say:
Pleased that we have been able to build up political
dialogue between the UK and Japan over recent years. This has
demonstrated how close we are on most of the vital issues and
has produced some excellent practical results, eg the UNGA
Resolution on Conventional Arms Transfers of 1991.
fed18/G7SUMMIT/pmmiyabilateral
CONFIDENTIAL