Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, Champion of Closer Ties With China, Dies at 90

Tokyo: Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who led the country for one year and later spent years working to improve relations with China, has died at the age of 90, officials announced on Monday.

The governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said Fukuda died on Thursday. It gave no further details.

A Political Heritage

Fukuda was born in 1936 into a political family in Gunma Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo. His father, Takeo Fukuda, also served as prime minister and worked to strengthen Japan’s relations with Beijing.

After graduating from Waseda University in Tokyo, Fukuda worked for more than 17 years at a Japanese oil company before entering politics. He first served as private secretary to his father shortly before the elder Fukuda became prime minister in 1976.

Fukuda was first elected to parliament in 1990, winning the seat his father had once held. His first ministerial post came in 2000, when he became Chief Cabinet Secretary, the government’s top spokesperson, under then-Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who was known for frequent gaffes. During that period, Fukuda jokingly described himself as the “secretary of explanations.”

Over his parliamentary career, Fukuda held several foreign affairs-related roles and became known as a diplomacy expert. Like his father, he placed strong emphasis on building friendly relations with Asian neighbors.

Brief Premiership

As prime minister from 2007 to 2008, Fukuda established stable relations with Chinese President Hu Jintao. However, his government lasted only one year. He struggled to manage a divided parliament in which the LDP controlled only one of the two chambers.

Fukuda was known for his deadpan manner and dry humor. When he announced his resignation at an emergency news conference in September 2008, a reporter remarked that he sounded as if he were talking about someone else. Fukuda replied, “I can look at myself objectively. I’m not like you.” The phrase was later named one of Japan’s buzzwords of the year in an annual event organized by a publisher, but Fukuda declined to accept the award.

Bridge-Builder With Beijing

After retiring from politics in 2012, Fukuda devoted himself to repairing Japan’s relations with China, which had been badly strained by territorial disputes over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

In 2014, he traveled to China for talks with President Xi Jinping aimed at easing tensions. The visit helped pave the way for then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to meet Xi. Fukuda also regularly led political delegations to China and other Asian countries and took part in international conferences.

In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press marking the 50th anniversary of the normalization of Japan-China relations in 1972, Fukuda warned that a lack of dialogue raises the risk of misunderstanding. He said that without dialogue, things that would not happen in normal circumstances could happen.