Echoing his late father's message more than three decades ago, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday that Japan will seek closer ties with Southeast Asian countries by supporting the planned creation of a single integrated market in the region.
In his speech to a symposium in Tokyo, Fukuda reconfirmed Japan's support for the establishment of an economic community by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by 2015, while noting Japan's alliance with the United States will continue to provide security in the Asia-Pacific region.
Fukuda's father, the late Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, is best remembered for his Fukuda Doctrine of 1977, which declared to Southeast Asian countries that Japan would build closer ties with the region and never again become a military aggressor.