Yasuo Fukuda
Fukuda was born in Takasaki, Gunma, the eldest son of politician (later the 67th Prime Minister) Takeo Fukuda. He grew up in Setagaya, Tokyo, attending Azabu High School and graduating from Waseda University in 1959 with a degree in economics. After university, he joined Maruzen Petroleum (now part of the Cosmo Oil Company). He was only minimally involved in politics over the next seventeen years, working his way up to section chief as a typical Japanese "salaryman". He was posted to the United States from 1962-64. While his father Takeo Fukuda was prime minister from 1976–78, Yasuo became a political secretary. From 1978 to 1989, he was a director of the Kinzai Institute for Financial Affairs, serving as a trustee from 1986 onward.
Fukuda Doctrine
Fukuda stated that even though Japan had the capability to rearm and to produce nuclear weapons, it steered clear of resurrecting its military past. Fukuda used article 9 of the 1946 constitution to reassert Japan's pacifist stance post-war. For the ASEAN nations and Southeast Asia as a whole, this statement served as a psychological reassurance to the memories of Japanese aggression in the second world war.