Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda came back home Thursday after his four-day Europe tour, which took him to Germany, Britain and Italy. During the trip, Fukuda met respectively with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the sidelines of the UN food summit in Rome.
As the talks were the first ones between Fukuda and the European leaders, some Japanese media dubbed Fukuda's tour as "meeting diplomacy".
Prepares for G8 summit
One of the main objectives of Fukuda's tour was to coordinate with European leaders and to seek their support for the upcoming Group of Eight summit which Japan will host early next month in Hokkaido. As the host country, Japan is undoubtedly aspiring for dominance at the summit.
Since host venue rotates through members of the G8, Japan, which has been seeking political power with the capacity of the world's No. 2 economy, has waited eight years for the opportunity to convene leaders of the other seven most developed nations and wage its influence on issues to be talked at the summit.
From the angle of domestic politics, to ensure leadership at the summit has to be one of the top priorities on Fukuda's agenda since he has to win back public trust through good performances on diplomacy.
Fukuda's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been grinded by the contorted parliament, whose two houses are controlled by the LDP and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan respectively ever since the LDP lost the Upper House election last July. Several important bills were blocked due to the opposition block's refusal to cooperate. The approval rate for the Fukuda Cabinet slid continuously to the dangerous level of 20 percent in May.
