TOKYO, Oct 26 – Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, known for strengthening ties between Japan and China but who struggled to manage affairs in a divided Diet during his one-year stint through September 2008, has died, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said Monday. He was 90.
Sources familiar with the matter said the former prime minister died in Tokyo on Thursday from heart failure. A funeral was held privately for close family members only, with a public memorial service to take place at a later date.
Fukuda visited China three months after becoming prime minister in September 2007 and invited then Chinese President Hu Jintao to visit Japan. Hu came to the country in May 2008, becoming the first Chinese head of state to do so in a decade.
Marked by his dovish diplomatic stance, Fukuda made efforts to develop ties with China, carrying on the work by his predecessor Shinzo Abe, who abruptly resigned for health reasons, having himself taken over from Junichiro Koizumi just a year earlier.
Under Koizumi, Japan-China relations had been strained due to his repeated visits to Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, which honors Class-A war criminals along with the war dead.
Upon taking office, Fukuda became the first Japanese prime minister whose father also served in the post. Takeo Fukuda was premier from 1976 to 1978.
Before taking on the premiership, Yasuo Fukuda served as chief Cabinet secretary, his first Cabinet post, for three-and-a-half years, a record at the time, under Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and his successor Koizumi between 2000 and 2004.
Fukuda became prime minister at a time of great difficulty for the LDP, as its ruling coalition had lost its Senate majority under Abe in the July 2007 election, leaving him to deal with a divided Diet and the then opposition Democratic Party of Japan, whose popularity was rising.
He endured numerous setbacks, including the collapse of efforts to form a grand coalition between the LDP and the DPJ during negotiations with then leader Ichiro Ozawa.
His government also saw its nominees for the Bank of Japan governor rejected by the opposition-controlled upper house. In June 2008, he faced the unprecedented passage of a nonbinding censure motion against a prime minister in the upper house.
Fukuda chaired the Group of Eight summit at the Lake Toya resort in Hokkaido, northern Japan, in July 2008, before abruptly declaring his intention to resign in September that year. He was succeeded by Taro Aso.
A late-blooming politician, Fukuda, who graduated from Waseda University, worked for an oil company for 17 years before becoming executive secretary to his father during his premiership. He won a House of Representatives seat for the first time in 1990, aged 53.
Fukuda, who represented a constituency in Gunma Prefecture, did not run in the lower house election in December 2012 and retired from politics after serving his seventh term in the lower house.
Following news of Fukuda’s death, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi expressed “deep sorrow” when speaking to reporters in Tokyo, praising him as a leader who “worked to articulate Japan’s position on various international issues and enhance its standing in the international community.”
Takaichi’s immediate predecessor, former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, praised his approach to China, saying that one of the former premier’s teachings was that Japan “must sincerely value and nurture relations with China.”
His son Tatsuo Fukuda, a lower house lawmaker who inherited his father’s political base after his retirement, said in an X post that the former prime minister “lived a 90-year life devoted to his work” and had been holding meetings until the day before his death.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun expressed deep condolences, calling Fukuda “an old friend of China, who made positive contributions” to improving Sino-Japanese relations and held “a correct view of history.”
Fukuda once urged the two countries to uphold the four political documents stipulating the principles governing bilateral relations and his remarks “carried great weight,” Guo added, urging “those ruling the Japanese government” to “do serious soul-searching.” – Kyodo
