Tokyo and Beijing made arrangements behind the scenes in 1991 with an eye toward China signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, according to newly released diplomatic documents.
Japan found itself in the enviable position of being among the first nations to learn that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had survived a failed attempt by Communist hard-liners in 1991 before it collapsed under the weight of his reform programs.
A Japanese diplomat confirmed that Mikhail Gorbachev was alive the day after an August 1991 coup attempt by Communist Party hard-liners, becoming possibly among the first countries to get information about the safety of the Soviet Union's leader, a Japanese diplomatic document shows
Japan and China shared the view that the two Asian nations did not pose a military threat to each other, two years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, according to a Japanese diplomatic document.