Few Japanese expect Fukuda to offer charismatic leadership like Koizumi. They had expected Abe to be such a leader when he started his brief tenure. They were utterly disappointed, however. They hoped Fukuda would put the LDP house in order so that Japan might continue plodding its way to being a normal country.

Versed as he is in solving intramural strife, Fukuda has little difficulty reorganizing the disarrayed LDP into a more cohesive party. The LDP, in fact, is an amalgamation of political groups with diverse opinions and different interests. They stay together just for the purpose of staying in power. Factional strife often triggers a split. Morihiro Hosokawa, a former LDP member, formed a splinter party and was elected prime minister. Ichiro Ozawa, who heads the largest opposition Democratic Party, served one time as LDP secretary-general.

Foreign relations are a totally new field for the new prime minister. The best he can do is to revive and modify the three-point Fukuda doctrine his father announced in Manila in 1977 as Japan’s Southeast Asian policy guideline. Takeo Fukuda, the prime minister then, promised that Japan would never be a military power, build “heart-to-heart” trust with all ASEAN countries, and do what it can to contribute to the peace and common prosperity of the region.

A modified Fukuda doctrine expands the coverage beyond Southeast Asia to include other parts of the world, China and Korea in particular. But the fact is that Japan is already a military power, albeit without nuclear capability and not as big as either the United States or China.

As chief Cabinet secretary, Fukuda himself proposed to reconsider Japan’s non-nuclear defense policy as a trial balloon to test international reaction. He promised not to visit the Yasukuni shrine, where Japan’s war dead, including war criminals not killed in action but hanged, are honored.

China may be appeased a little, but disputes over undersea oil resources can’t be solved by a mere promise to refrain from a pilgrimage to the Shinto shrine, which is considered a sign of the revival of Japanese militarism. Issues with the two Koreas can’t be settled with the repetition of the determination to build earnest trust. Japan can’t but hurt relations with the United States, if Fukuda buckles under public pressure to withdraw support for the peace-keeping in Iraq.

Fukuda has to be a very good political tightrope walker to remain prime minister for longer than his father. Aso, his long-time rival, is challenging him to become the next LDP sosai.

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