Kiichi Miyazawa - Prime Minister

Prime Minister

Miyazawa became Prime Minister on 5 November 1991, and gained brief fame in the United States when President George H. W. Bush vomited in his lap and fainted during a state dinner on 8 January 1992.

His government passed a law allowing Japan to send its forces overseas for peacekeeping missions as well as negotiating a trade agreement with the United States. It also introduced financial reforms to address the growing economic malaise in Japan in the 1990s.

Miyazawa resigned in 1993 after losing a vote of no confidence marking an end to 38 years of Liberal Democratic Party government.

A leading figure in the Trilateral Commission from its beginning, he became acting Japanese chairman in late 1993. He passed the baton to Yotaro Kobayashi in January 1997.

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