Clinton Attends Obuchi State Funeral in Tokyo

President Clinton paid his final respects to late Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi at a state funeral Thursday and met with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in advance of next week’s historic summit between leaders of the two Koreas.

Aides say Clinton, who spent nine hours on the ground here, made the long trip out of friendship for Obuchi. The prime minister died May 14 after suffering a stroke in early April.

“Prime Minister Obuchi touched hearts around the world in simple, human ways,” the president said after the ceremony.

Clinton’s bilateral meetings with Kim and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori allowed the three allies to ensure that they are in accord before the Korean summit in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. The mercurial Communist regime in the North has a history of exploiting the differences among the three nations.

Clinton also touched briefly on several U.S.-Japanese issues during his meeting with the politically beleaguered Mori. They discussed disputes over financial support for U.S. troops stationed in Japan and over telecommunications access fees, as well as the agenda for next month’s summit in Okinawa of the Group of 8 leading industrial nations.

The brief transpacific trip, during which Clinton spent nearly three times as long in the air as he did on the ground, also served to bolster bilateral relations here in a nation where formality and ceremony are highly valued.

“I really appreciate Clinton’s coming, and I think many others do too,” said Tsuneshige Hitoshi, a 52-year-old Tokyo office worker.

In the wings, world leaders discussed a number of issues. The hottest topic was whether the three-day Korean summit, which begins Monday, will herald a more peaceful, constructive and globally integrated North Korea. During the half-hour Clinton-Kim meeting, the U.S. president expressed hope that next week will prove a turning point in relations between the two Koreas.

The U.S. also signaled that it may be close to some movement of its own in relations with North Korea. P. J. Crowley, a White House spokesman, told reporters that he expects the Clinton administration will have an announcement “very soon” on the issue of easing sanctions against North Korea.

Administration officials added that they were heartened by North Korea’s moratorium on building missiles; hope that the regime will remain engaged; and saw the recent visit to China by North Korea’s isolated leader, Kim Jong Il, as a positive sign.

“When you have a leader that doesn’t travel for 17 years at a crack, getting a sense of what’s out there is valuable,” Crowley said. “It can’t help but broaden his perspective.”

That said, most of Clinton’s time was spent honoring Japan’s late prime minister. Obuchi left a note requesting a simple funeral. To the extent that a gathering of 6,000 people supervised by 10,000 police officers can be simple, his wishes were respected.

In an emotional moment, his 28-year-old son, Go, carried a white box filled with his father’s ashes into the huge, sparsely decorated sports hall and handed them to Mori, who described his predecessor as a strong family man. Mourners from scores of countries paid their respects beneath a giant photograph of Obuchi as a huge video screen played highlights of his life.

Obuchi, a longtime and loyal Liberal Democratic politician, was tapped even in death to help revive the long-dominant party. An upcoming parliamentary election was called soon after he died, in apparent hopes of capitalizing on the sympathy vote. The election is set for June 25, Obuchi’s birthday.

However, even the wellspring of public emotion toward the former prime minister has not been enough to counter his successor’s free fall in opinion polls, although the ruling party’s position is less vulnerable.

In just a few weeks, Mori has developed a reputation as a bumbling leader with limited understanding of key issues. That status was reinforced by his recent reference to Japan as a “divine nation with the emperor at its core,” a gaffe that awakened painful memories of World War II.

Obuchi, meanwhile, left a mixed legacy after nearly two years in office.

The senior politician assumed the premiership in July 1998 amid low expectations, which he generally exceeded. He improved Japan’s position abroad by forging closer relations with South Korea, China and Russia. On a personal level, his humility and “everyman” touch ultimately endeared him to many ordinary Japanese. And he kept the leaky economy afloat by recapitalizing banks and launching a massive $377-billion public spending spree.

“I think the Clinton-Obuchi relationship was good because Obuchi implemented the policies that the U.S. wanted,” said Nobuo Asai, an independent foreign relations expert.

But political support for Obuchi waned toward the end of his administration as he struggled to deal with a fractious ruling coalition, an erupting volcano on the northern island of Hokkaido and an economy that failed to cooperate. And in perhaps his more enduring legacy, he boosted Japan’s government debt by $362 billion, a bill that the world’s second-largest economy may be paying for generations.

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Makiko Inoue in The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.