was a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1976 to 1978.
Born in Gunma Prefecture and educated at Tokyo Imperial University, Fukuda served as an official in the Ministry of Finance for two decades before entering politics. He was first elected to the Diet in 1952, and served as agriculture, forestry, and fisheries minister in 1959–1960 under Nobusuke Kishi, as head of the party's political affairs section under Hayato Ikeda, and as finance minister (1965–1966, 1968–1971) and foreign minister (1971–1972) under Eisaku Satō, becoming his protégé. Fukuda's political life was marked by a rivalry with Kakuei Tanaka, who succeeded Satō as prime minister in 1972 and under whom Fukuda served as finance minister from 1973 to 1974. As prime minister from 1976, Fukuda formulated the Fukuda Doctrine, which pledged trust and cooperation with Asian countries, and concluded the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China in 1978. He was succeeded as premier in 1978 by Masayoshi Ōhira.
His son, Yasuo Fukuda, followed him as a politician and served as prime minister from 2007 to 2008.
Early life and education
Fukuda was born in the village of Kaneko in Gunma prefecture (present day Takasaki City) on January 14, 1905, the second son to an old samurai family who had been village headmen in the Edo period. His father was the mayor of Kaneko, his grandfather had also been mayor and his older brother eventually filled the same role. Fukuda was a gifted student who went on to First Higher School in Tokyo, followed by studying law at Tokyo Imperial University. He received the top score on the civil service examination and entered the Ministry of Finance upon graduating in 1929.
At this time he married Mie Arai, the granddaughter of a Supreme Court justice. The couple came to have three sons and two daughters. Yasuo Fukuda was their eldest son. Fukuda steadily rose in the ranks of the Ministry. During the Pacific War he served as an adviser on fiscal policy for the Wang Jingwei regime.
Political career
In the 1952 election, Fukuda was elected as an independent to the House of Representatives, representing the third district of Gunma.
Fukuda grew close to Nobusuke Kishi, who was making a political comeback. He joined the Liberal Party along with Kishi in 1953 and when Kishi was expelled the following year Fukuda left with him and took part in forming the Democratic Party. Fukada became a prized lieutenant to Kishi.
The two parties merged to form the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955. After Kishi became prime minister, Fukuda became chairman of the Policy Research Council in 1958 and secretary-general in January 1959. Fukuda joined the cabinet in June as Minister of Agriculture, remaining until the Kishi was forced to resign as prime minister due to the massive 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security treaty.
After that, Hayato Ikeda was elected as LDP president and prime minister with the support of Kishi and his brother Eisaku Satō. Fukuda again became chairman of the Policy Research Council in December 1960. Before long, the alliance between Ikeda, Kishi and Satō began to fray. Satō wanted to succeed Ikeda and Kishi was inclined to support him, but Ikeda intended to have a long-term administration. In the reshuffle of July 1961, Ikeda treated his former opponents Banboku Ōno and Ichirō Kōno generously to balance the influence of Kishi and Satō. Fukuda for his part lost his position as policy chairman.
In January 1962, Fukuda formed the "Party Spirit Renovation League" (Tōfū Sasshin Renmei), which became a forum for Diet members to air anti-Ikeda grievances. The Kishi faction began to split between those who opposed or supported Ikeda, led by Fukuda and respectively. Kishi disbanded the faction in July 1962 and all but the group close to Kawashima joined Fukuda, who became Kishi's de facto successor as factional leader.
Satō decided not to stand in the 1962 LDP leadership election and Ikeda successfully ran unopposed, but the 70 or so members of the Party Spirit Renovation League cast blank ballots in protest.
Although Fukuda remained locked out of the cabinet during the Ikeda years, his star began to rise again under Satō. Fukuda rose to the prestigious posts of Minister of Finance (1965–66, 1968–71) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1971–72). After Satō's third and final term as prime minister came to an end in 1972, Fukuda ran as a candidate to replace him but lost out to insurgent candidate Kakuei Tanaka. Under Tanaka, Fukuda once again served as Minister of Finance (1973–74), and even when the Tanaka cabinet fell due to a corruption scandal, Fukuda was seen as "clean" and served a stint as Director of the Economic Planning Agency under the ensuing cabinet of Takeo Miki (1974–76).
Premiership (1976–1978)
After the LDP's poor showing in the 1976 election, Miki stepped down as prime minister and Fukuda was elected to replace him. Fukuda remained in office until 1978,
thumb|left|200px|Fukuda with [[Giulio Andreotti, Jimmy Carter, Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (at the 4th G7 summit on 16 July 1978)]]
On 18 August 1977, Fukuda delivered an address at the ASEAN summit in Manila, which had been popularly dubbed as the "Fukuda Doctrine." In this speech, Fukuda was mainly concerned with three goals: overcoming the psychological barriers between Southeast Asia and Japan which came about due to World War II by reaffirming Japan's commitment to pacifism, increasing mutual "heart-to-heart" confidence between Japan and ASEAN countries, and the willingness of Japan to be an "equal partner" with ASEAN countries (rather than the economic giant it was feared as). In order to bolster these promises, Fukuda clarified Japanese willingness to provide for loans and development assistance, but under the condition that ASEAN does not require Japan to commit to joining an exclusivist trading block.
In an effort to end the LDP's faction system, Fukuda introduced primary elections within the party. In the first primary towards the end of 1978, he was beaten by Masayoshi Ōhira for the presidency of the LDP, and forced to resign as prime minister. Fukuda was later instrumental in the formation of the Inter Action Council. He retired from politics in 1990. In addition, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi began his political career as a secretary to Fukuda, and the two were very close in their political and personal lives from the 1970s onward (Fukuda was the best man at Koizumi's wedding).
In his 1977 speech delivered to ASEAN, Fukuda identified controversial Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos as a close friend of his.
Death
Fukuda died of chronic emphysema in the hospital of Tokyo Women's Medical College on 5 July 1995 at the age of 90.
Honours
- Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (5 July 1995; posthumous)
- Golden Pheasant Award of the Scout Association of Japan (1979)
References
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