JUST TWO MONTHS AGO, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda played host of the Group of Eight summit. He strengthened ties with neighboring China and even started to coax North Korea to relaunch a probe into its past state-sponsored kidnapping program.
But with his abrupt resignation announcement Monday, all that is on hold.
With two new prime ministers in as many years -- and growing calls for snap elections, where the ruling party could lose its grip on power -- there are concerns that Japan is losing its hard-won clout on the world stage.
'Why would anyone take Japan seriously now?' says Masaru Ikei, a professor in international relations at Keio University. 'They don't know who the next prime minister will be, or how long the next government will last.'
Japan's diplomatic appointments are already in disarray. The government announced Wednesday that a trilateral summit with trading partners China and South Korea planned this month has been postponed. That came after Defense Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi put a trip to Washington on hold.
'We have judged that it is difficult to hold the summit due to the political situation of the Japanese side,' top government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.
Bolstering relations with Japan's Asian neighbors had been a bright spot in Mr. Fukuda's mostly lackluster report card. He pushed especially for better ties with Beijing, twice visiting China in his yearlong term and frequently meeting the country's top officials. He proposed the three-way summit earlier this year.
Another issue that could be affected: Tokyo's negotiations with North Korea over its kidnappings of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s. Japanese officials had expected Pyongyang to soon resume a probe into the matter. But now, North Korea is likely to take a 'wait-and-see' attitude to determine who will take over from Mr. Fukuda, Mr. Ikei says.
Mr. Fukuda also had taken a lead in calling for greenhouse-gas-emissions targets, presiding over an agreement at the G8 summit in July to halve emissions by 2050. He planned to attend the United Nations General Assembly session in New York this month to make a further case for measures to fight global warming, according to Japanese media.
Now, Foreign Ministry officials are wondering whether the next leader will be ready to take Mr. Fukuda's place in New York. General debate at the U.N. General Assembly starts Sept. 23, just a day after the new prime minister is scheduled to be selected.
To be sure, the two front-runners to succeed Mr. Fukuda aren't foreign-policy novices. Ruling-party heavyweight Taro Aso, who announced his intention to run for prime minister Tuesday, has served as foreign minister and has made much of boosting Japan's image abroad by promoting Japanese pop culture. Another possible candidate, Yuriko Koike, has served as defense minister and speaks fluent Arabic.
One area Japan won't change is its policy toward the U.S. Both Mr. Aso and Ms. Koike are staunch Washington supporters. Last year, Ms. Koike met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a visit to the U.S. and later jokingly referred to herself as the 'Japanese Rice.'
Hiroko Tabuchi
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