[Taro] Aso, 66, a comic book buff whose acerbic comments about China have drawn protests from Beijing, had been the presumed front-runner. But Fukuda, 71, a dovish critic of Abe's government, gathered enough support Friday from key ruling party figures to mount a serious challenge.
The choice is between continuing the closer cooperation by Japan with America in defense issues or slowing that cooperation down to attempt to improve relations with China.
Broadly speaking, in the long run Japan will still cooperate with us no matter who wins, but this is still important to us in the short run.
