Yasuhiro Nakasone | |
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中曾根 康弘 | |
Nakasone at Andrews Air Force Base in 1983
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45th Prime Minister of Japan | |
In office November 27, 1982 – November 6, 1987 |
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Monarch | Shōwa |
Preceded by | Zenkō Suzuki |
Succeeded by | Noboru Takeshita |
Personal details | |
Born |
Takasaki, Japan |
May 27, 1918
Political party | Liberal Democratic Party |
Children | Hirofumi Nakasone |
Alma mater | ″Military service″ |
Religion | Shinto (Shūyōdan Hōseikai) |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Allegiance | Empire of Japan |
Service/branch | Imperial Japanese Navy |
Years of service | 1941–1945 |
Rank | Lieutenant-Commander |
Battles/wars | World War II |
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 Brian Mulroney, Ronald Reagan, Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, Bettino Craxi 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. At age 98, Nakasone is currently the oldest living former Japanese prime minister and the second oldest living former state leader in the world, after former Vietnamese Prime Minister Đỗ Mười.
Nakasone was born in Takasaki in Gunma, a poor mountainous prefecture in central Japan. He is the second son of Nakasone Matsugoro II, a lumber dealer, and Nakamura Yuku. He had five other siblings: an elder brother (Kichitaro), an elder sister (Shoko), a younger brother (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 era, 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 Satomimura 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-First World War building boom.