Yasuhiro Nakasone

Yasuhiro Nakasone
71st, 72nd and 73rd
Prime Minister of JapanIn office
November 27, 1982 – November 6, 1987Monarch Emperor ShowaPreceded by Zenko SuzukiSucceeded by Noboru TakeshitaBorn May 27, 1918(1918-05-27) (age 90)
Takasaki, Gunma, JapanNationality JapanesePolitical party Liberal Democratic PartyReligion Buddhismand Shinto [1]

President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone having lunch at Nakasone's country residence in Japan in 1983. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone (left) at the funeral of Ronald Reagan with former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, with former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Yasuhiro Nakasone (中曽根康弘 Nakasone Yasuhiro, born May 27, 1918) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from November 27, 1982 to November 6, 1987. A contemporary of Ronald Reagan, Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, and Mikhail Gorbachev, he is best known for pushing through the privatization of state-owned companies, and for helping to revitalize Japanese nationalism during and after his term as prime minister.

1 Early life
2 Prime Minister
3 Later political life
4 Further reading
5 External links

Early life

He was born in Takasaki, Gunma and attended Tokyo Imperial University. During World War II, he was a commissioned officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In 1946, he entered the Diet of Japan as a member of the House of Representatives. He gained brief notoriety in 1952 for blaming Emperor Hirohito for Japan's defeat in the war. Nakasone rose through the LDP's ranks, becoming Minister of Science in 1959 under the government of Nobusuke Kishi, then Minister of Transport in 1967, head of the Agency of Defense in 1970, Minister of International Trade and Industry in 1972 and Minister of Administration in 1981.

Prime Minister

In 1982, Nakasone became Prime Minister. Along with Minister of Foreign Affairs Shintaro Abe, Nakasone improved Japan's relations with the USSR and the People's Republic of China. Nakasone was best known for his close relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, popularly called the "Ron-Yasu" friendship. In domestic policy, Nakasone's most notable policy was his privatization initiative, which led to the breakup of Japan National Railways into the modern Japan Railways Group.

Nakasone also became known for having a nationalist attitude. In 1985, he became the first Japanese prime minister to visit Yasukuni Shrine after the controversial decision to enshrine fourteen Class A war criminals was made in 1978. During his last term in office, he also gained notoriety among the various non-Japanese ethnic groups in Japan (particularly the sizeable Korean minority) for proclaiming that Japan's success was because it did not have ethnic minorities, like the US. He then clarified his comments, stating that he meant to congratulate the US on its economic success despite the presence of "problematic" minorities. Due to this issue, Masayuki Fujio, the Minister of Education, had to resign in 1986.

Later political life

Nakasone was replaced by Noboru Takeshita in 1987, and was implicated, along with other LDP lawmakers, in the Recruit scandal that broke the following year.

Although he remained in the Diet for another decade and a half, his influence gradually waned. In 2003, Nakasone was not given a place on the LDP's electoral list, thereby ending his career as a member of the Diet. The move was widely seen as a blunt and effective attack by Junichiro Koizumi on the old guard LDP leadership.

Nakasone's son, Hirofumi Nakasone, is also a member of the Diet, and served in the cabinet of Keizo Obuchi as Minister of Education.

Preceded by
Helmut Kohl Chair of the G8
1986 Succeeded by
Amintore Fanfani