Kiichi Miyazawa

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78th Prime Minister of Japan
Kiichi Miyazawa

In office November 5, 1991 – August 9, 1993
Monarch	Akihito
Preceded by	Toshiki Kaifu
Succeeded by	Morihiro Hosokawa

Born	October 8, 1919 Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan
Died	June 28, 2007 (aged 87) Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party

Kiichi Miyazawa (宮澤喜一, Miyazawa Kiichi^?, October 8, 1919–June 28, 2007) was a Japanese politician and the 78th Prime Minister from November 5, 1991 to August 9, 1993.

1 Early life and career
2 Prime Minister
3 Subsequent career
4 References

Miyazawa was born in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, and graduated from Tokyo Imperial University with a degree in law. In 1942 he joined the Ministry of Finance. In 1953 he was elected to the upper house of the Diet of Japan, where he stayed until moving to the lower house in 1967.

Miyazawa held a number of prominent public positions, including Minister of International Trade and Industry (1970–71), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1974–76), Director General of the Economic Planning Agency (1977–78), and Chief Cabinet Secretary (1984–86). He became Minister of Finance under the government of Noboru Takeshita in 1987, but had to resign amid the Recruit scandal. ^[1]

Miyazawa became Prime Minister on November 5, 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 January 8, 1992. The Japanese even invented a verb for this incident: busshu-suru or busshuru—literally, “to do a Bush,” or “to vomit in public.”^[2]

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. ^[1]

Kiichi Miyazawa, left, meets in 1999 with U.S. Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin. At the the time, Miyazawa was serving as minister of finance.

Miyazawa later returned to frontbench politics when he was once again appointed finance minister from 1999 to 2002 in the governments of Keizo Obuchi and Yoshiro Mori. His political career ended after he retired from the Diet of Japan in 2003.

Miyazawa was also a member of the Trilateral Commission.