Japan's former PM Takeo Fukuda, proponent of ties with China, dies at 90

TOKYO (AP) — Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda , who led the country for just one year and spent years afterward trying to build better ties with China, has died, officials said Monday. He was 90.

He died on Thursday, the governing Liberal Democratic Party said, without disclosing further details, including cause of his death.

Born in 1936, Fukuda grew up in a political family in Gunma, northwest of Tokyo. His father Takeo Fukuda also served as prime minister and worked to build Tokyo's ties with Beijing.

After graduating from Waseda University in Tokyo, Yasuo Fukuda worked for a Japanese oil company for more than 17 years before entering politics, first serving as his father's private secretary just before the elder Fukuda became Japan's leader in 1976.

The younger Fukuda was first elected to parliament in 1990, taking his father's former seat. He landed his first ministerial post as Chief Cabinet Secretary, or top spokesperson, for gaffe-prone then-Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in 2000. During that time Fukuda jokingly called himself the “secretary of explanations.”

As a lawmaker, Fukuda served in a number of foreign affairs-related roles and developed a reputation as a diplomacy expert. Like his father, he placed great importance on developing friendships with Asian countries.

During his 2007-2008 prime ministership, Fukuda developed stable ties with China's Hu Jintao. Fukuda's rule lasted only one year as he struggled to manage a divided parliament in which his Liberal Democratic Party held a majority in only one of the two houses.

After his retirement in 2012, Fukuda devoted his time to improving Japan’s relations with China during a period when their ties were disrupted by territorial disputes over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

In 2014, Fukuda visited China to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, seeking a thaw in their chilly ties, paving the way for then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s China visit to meet with Xi.

Fukuda also regularly headed political delegations to China and other Asian countries and attended international conferences.

“Lack of dialogue increases risks of misunderstanding ... and things that do not happen under normal circumstances could happen,” Fukuda said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2022, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1972 normalization of Japan-China ties.

Fukuda was often straight faced and known for his wry humor.

When Fukuda announced his resignation at an emergency news conference in September 2008 and a reporter said he sounded as though he was talking about someone else. Then Fukuda replied: "I can look at myself objectively. I'm not like you."

“I'm not like you” was chosen as one of the buzzwords of the year later in 2008 in an annual event hosted by a publisher, but Fukuda declined to accept the award.