Yasuhiro Nakasone

Family background Nakasone was born in Takasaki in Gunma, a prefecture northwest of Tokyo, on 27 May 1918. He was the second son of Nakasone Matsugoro II, a lumber dealer, and Nakamura Yuku. He had five siblings: an elder brother named Kichitaro, an elder sister named Shoko, a younger brother named Ryosuke and another younger brother and younger sister who both died in childhood. The Nakasone family had been of the samurai class during the Edo period, and claimed direct descent from the Minamoto clan through the famous Minamoto no Yoshimitsu and through his son Minamoto no Yoshikiyo (d. 1149). According to family records, Tsunayoshi (k. 1417), a vassal of the Takeda clan and a tenth-generation descendant of Yoshikiyo, took the name of Nakasone Juro and was killed at the Battle of Sagamigawa. In about 1590, the samurai Nakasone Sōemon Mitsunaga settled in the town of in Kōzuke Province. His descendants became silk merchants and pawnbrokers. Nakasone's father, originally born Nakasone Kanichi, settled in Takasaki in 1912 and established a timber business and lumberyard which had success as a result of the post-WWI building boom. In the autumn of 1938, Nakasone entered the Faculty of Law of the Imperial University of Tokyo. During his time at the university, he was strongly influenced by , whose lectures on politics fascinated him. He also developed the belief that personality should not be used as a means to achieve something, which contributed to his strong anti-communist and anti-Nazi views. On the night of 10 March 1940, he received a phone call from his father telling him that his mother in Takasaki had fallen seriously ill. By the time he arrived in Takasaki on the first train the next morning, she had already passed away. The fact that his mother had not told him about her illness, so as not to distract him from his studies, became an impetus for him to work harder. He passed the high-level bureaucrat recruitment examination. He began working for the Home Ministry, which was as prestigious as the Ministry of Finance due to its extensive authority. On the beach, he cremated the first 23 casualties among his staff, including his ex-yakuza assistant. This experience left a deep and lasting impression, which profoundly influenced his political beliefs. There, he realized that the construction of the airfield had been stalled due to the prevalence of sexual crimes, gambling, and other problems among his men, so he gathered comfort women and organized a brothel called "comfort station" as a solution. Upon returning to Tokyo after the end of the Second World War, he resumed his suspended career at the Home Ministry. He observed the growing prevalence of communism among the Japanese people, but the Civil Service was largely powerless to address it under the absolute authority of the Allied Occupation Forces. While supervising the police force in Kagawa Prefecture, he decided to abandon his bureaucratic career and stand in the upcoming general election. He later wrote of his return to Tokyo in August 1945 after Japan's surrender: "I stood vacantly amid the ruins of Tokyo, after discarding my officer's short sword and removing the epaulettes of my uniform. As I looked around me, I swore to resurrect my homeland from the ashes of defeat". == Early parliamentary career ==

in 1959. He can be seen at the centre of the fourth row from the front. He stood in the 1949 general election as a Democratic Party candidate. He campaigned on a nationalist platform, arguing for an enlarged Self-Defence Force, to amend Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (which outlawed war as a means to settling international disputes), and to revive Japanese patriotism, especially in reverence for the Emperor. He entered the Japanese Diet as a member of the House of Representatives for the Democratic Party. "As a freshman lawmaker in 1951, he delivered a 28-page letter to General MacArthur criticising the occupation, a brazen move. The General angrily threw the letter in [the] bin, Yasuhiro was later told. This stand established [Yasuhiro Nakasone's] credentials as a right-wing politician." In 1955, at Nakasone's urging, the government granted the equivalent of $14,000,000 to the Agency for Industrial Science and Technology to begin nuclear power research. 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, Director General of the Japan Defense Agency from 1970 to 1971, Minister of International Trade and Industry in 1972 and Minister of Administration in 1981. As the head of the Self-Defence Force, Nakasone argued for an increase in defence spending from less than 1% GNP to 3% of GNP. He was also in favour of Japan having tactical nuclear weapons. He was labelled "the weathervane" in 1972 because he switched his support from Takeo Fukuda to Kakuei Tanaka in the leadership election, ensuring Tanaka's victory. In turn, Tanaka would give his powerful support to Nakasone against Fukuda a decade later in the fight for the premiership. ==Premiership (1982–1987)==

In 1982, Nakasone became prime minister. Along with Minister of Foreign Affairs Shintaro Abe, Nakasone improved Japanese 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. Nakasone sought a more equal relationship with the United States, and said: "President Reagan is the pitcher and I'm the catcher. When the pitcher gives the signs, I'll co-operate unsparingly, but if he doesn't sometimes follow the catcher's signs, the game can't be won". Nakasone said Japan would be "America's unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the Pacific and that Japan would "keep complete control of the four straits that go through to Japanese islands, to prevent the passage of Soviet submarines". Nakasone also visited President Corazon Aquino in a series of talks between the Philippines and Japan during a special state visit from 1986 to 1987, to provide good economic and trade relations. In economic affairs, Nakasone's most notable policy was his privatisation initiative, which led to the breakup of Japan National Railways into the modern Japan Railways Group (JR). This led to 80,000 redundancies, unheard of in Japan until that point. He also privatized Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation and Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation to create Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) and Japan Tobacco Inc. (JT). The privatization of the three public corporations reduced the number of employees and significantly improved ordinary income per employee, productivity, and sales. For the first time in Japan's post-war history, bureaucrats lost their leading role. Nakasone also became known for having a nationalist attitude and for wanting to stimulate ethnic pride amongst the Japanese. He was an adherent to the nihonjinron theory that claims Japan is incomparably different from the rest of the world. Influenced by Japanese philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji, Nakasone believed that Japan's "monsoon culture" inspired a special Japanese compassion, unlike the desert culture of the Middle East that produced the Judeo-Christian "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". In a speech in 1986, Nakasone said it was Japan's international mission to spread the monsoon culture abroad. This turned out however to be a controversial move which was heavily criticised by the Chinese Government (including in its newspaper, ''People's Daily'') and led to angry demonstrations in Beijing. It was also attacked by opponents at home for violating the Constitution's separation of religion and state. Nakasone defended his actions by saying, "The true defence of Japan ... becomes possible only through the combination of liberty-loving peoples who are equal to each other ... The manner is desired to be based on self-determination of the race". He also said, "It is considered progressive to criticise pre-war Japan for its faults and defects, but I firmly oppose such a notion. A nation is still a nation whether it wins or loses a war". Nakasone also sought educational reform, setting up a commission. Its report recommended that "a spirit of patriotism" should be inculcated in children, along with respect for elders and authority. This was not fully implemented and came under attack from the teachers' trade union. The commission also recommended that the national anthem should be taught and that the Rising Sun Flag should also be raised during entrance and graduation ceremonies. History textbooks were also reformed. In 1986, Nakasone dismissed his Education Minister, Masayuki Fujio, after he justified Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910. He then clarified his comments, stating that he meant to congratulate the U.S. on its economic success despite the presence of "problematic" minorities. Ainu people living in Japan criticized this comment as ignoring the reality of racial discrimination against them. In 1987, he was forced to resign after he attempted to introduce a value added tax to reduce the burden of direct taxes in a policy designed to cut the budget deficit. File:President Reagan and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.jpg|Having lunch with Ronald Reagan (at Nakasone's country residence in Hinode, Nishitama, Tokyo in 1983) File:G-7 Summit 1983.jpg|With leaders of the G7 (at the 9th G7 summit in 1983) File:President Ronald Reagan Walking with Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan at Camp David.jpg|With Ronald Reagan (at Camp David on 13 April 1986) File:President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan receive a gift from Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.jpg|With Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan (at Camp David on 13 April 1986) ==Later political life==

President Mikhail Gorbachev, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (at the Funeral of former President Ronald Reagan on 11 June 2004) 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, despite a fight, Nakasone was not given a place on the LDP's electoral list as the party, by then led by Jun'ichirō Koizumi, introduced an age limit of 73 years for candidates in the proportional representation blocks, ending his career as a member of the Diet. In 2004, he attended the funeral of his old friend Ronald Reagan. In 2010, "aware of his status as one of the few leaders revered across Japan's suddenly fractured political landscape" and the country's "most revered elder statesman", Nakasone launched a series of interviews to address the direction of prime minister Yukio Hatoyama's government. In a profile at that time, he saw Hatoyama's "inexperienced left-leaning" government as "challenging Japan's postwar political order and its close relationship with the United States". As well, the LDP was "crumbling into disarray" in the wake of Hatoyama's victory. In the profile, Nakasone described the moment "as a national opening on par with the wrenching social and political changes that followed defeat in the [world] war [and] praised the appearance of a strong second political party as a step toward true democracy". "Being knocked out of power is a good chance to study in the cram school of public opinion", he was quoted as saying of the LDP. He "faulted Mr. Hatoyama for giving Washington the impression that [Hatoyama] valued ties with China more than he did those with the United States. 'Because of the prime minister’s imprudent remarks, the current situation calls for Japan to make efforts to improve things,' he said. The [Japanese] relationship with the United States is different from that with China, he said, because 'it is built on a security alliance, and not just on the alliance, but on the shared values of liberal democracy, and on its shared ideals.'" And relative to another high-profile current source of friction between Japan and the United States, Nakasone said: "Problems like Okinawa [and the American military base there] can be solved by talking together." ==Personal life and death==

On 11 February 1945, Nakasone married Tsutako Nakasone (30 October 1921 – 7 November 2012). Nakasone's son, Hirofumi Nakasone, is also a member of the Diet; he has served as Minister of Education and as Minister of Foreign Affairs. His grandson, Yasutaka Nakasone, is a member of the House of Representatives. Nakasone died in Tokyo on 29 November 2019, at the age of 101 years and 186 days. Nakasone was the third oldest Prime Minister of Japan by age after Naruhiko Higashikuni and Tomiichi Murayama. == Honours ==

Yoshihide Suga addressed at the official funeral for Yasuhiro Nakasone at the Grand Prince Hotel Shin Takanawa in Minato Ward, Tōkyō Metropolis on October 17, 2020 National honours • Order of the Chrysanthemum: • Grand Cordon, 29 April 1997 • Collar, 29 November 2019 (posthumously) • Golden Pheasant Award of the Scout Association of Japan (1986) • Junior First Rank (29 November 2019; posthumously) Foreign honours • : • Grand Cross of the Order of the Aztec Eagle • : • Grand Cross 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany • : • Grand Collar (Raja) of the Order of Sikatuna • : • Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile • : • Star of Mahaputera, 1st Class () • : • Grand Cross (Storkors) of the Order of Saint Olav • : • Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín • : • The Most Honourable Order of Seri Paduka Mahkota Brunei, First Class • : • Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for Distinguished Service () • : • Grand Cross of the Order of the White Rose of Finland • : • Order of Diplomatic Service Merit, 1st Class (Grand Gwanghwa Medal) • : • Knight Grand Cordon of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant • : • Grand Officier of the Légion d'honneur == See also ==