Arya News - At a press conference on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun offered condolences over Fukuda’s passing, saying he “actively contributed to the improvement and development of China-Japan relations.”
TOKYO – Former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who died Thursday, made diplomacy his lifework, striving tirelessly to improve relations between Japan and China until his final days.
Struggling with a divided Diet in which the opposition controlled the House of Councillors (now called the Senate), Fukuda stepped down after only a year in office, yet he spearheaded key initiatives such as establishing the Consumer Affairs Agency and establishing rules for managing official documents.
While serving as prime minister in December 2007, Fukuda visited China and agreed with Chinese President Hu Jintao to promote a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests.
In May 2008, he hosted Hu as a state guest in Japan, signing a Japan-China joint statement that affirmed a future-oriented relationship.
His father, former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, also worked to improve ties with China, concluding the Japan-China Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1978.
Together with the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique and the 1998 Japan-China Joint Declaration, the documents signed under the two Fukudas are recognized as the four political documents that serve as the foundation of the bilateral relationship.
Even after retiring from politics in 2012, Fukuda held a secret meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014, helping pave the way for a Japan-China summit that November.
During his time in office in 2008, Fukuda set up a panel of experts on the management of official documents, leading to the enactment of the Public Records and Archives Management Law in June 2009 under the Cabinet of his successor, Prime Minister Taro Aso.
When the Finance Ministry was found to have altered official approval documents, Fukuda stressed the importance of proper record management, saying, “It is completely meaningless if [the law] is not observed.”
After announcing his resignation in September 2008, he secured Cabinet approval for bills to create the Consumer Affairs Agency, leading to the launch of the agency in September 2009.
While in office, Fukuda met twice with Ichiro Ozawa, then leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, seeking to break the impasse in the divided Diet.
Fukuda sounded out Ozawa about forming a grand coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party and the DPJ, but the plan fell through due to pushback within the opposition party.
Ozawa reflected on those days to reporters in Tokyo on Monday, saying: “He took what I had to say seriously. If we had joined forces in a coalition, Japanese politics might have taken a different path afterward.”
China expresses condolences
At a press conference Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun offered condolences over Fukuda’s passing, saying he “actively contributed to the improvement and development of China-Japan relations.”
Guo commended Fukuda for having “long been committed to friendship” between the two nations, noting that during his premiership in 2008, Japan and China signed a joint statement on comprehensively advancing their mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests — the fourth political document between the two countries.
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