politics

Former Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone dies at 101

22 Comments
By Linda Sieg

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22 Comments
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Sad news. Like him or not, I admired him as one of the first Japanese Prime Ministers to stand large on the international stage.

6 ( +15 / -9 )

Nakasone was an influential right-wing "revanchist" politician whose dubious legacy lives on in Abe Shinzo's brand of Japanese nationalism. Sorry, but he was not my cup of ocha.

2 ( +15 / -13 )

Ironic he should die at this time. Was'nt forced prostitution his idea in occupied territory during WW2.

-6 ( +9 / -15 )

Thanks to "The Plaza Accord 1985"!  Many Japanese people should remember him!

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Nakasone, the engineer of financial and nationalistic bubbles.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Nakasone was an influential right-wing "revanchist" politician whose dubious legacy lives on in Abe Shinzo's brand of Japanese nationalism. Sorry, but he was not my cup of ocha.

well said.

Nakasone, the engineer of financial and nationalistic bubbles.

yup.

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

He engaged in that creepy brand of Japanese racism, which described the Japanese people as "warm and wet" (flexible, emotional and forgiving), and gaijin as "cold and dry" (rational, harsh, aloof). Yup, the wisdom of a world leader, head the world's second-biggest economy. LOL.

-4 ( +9 / -13 )

He certainly lived a long life, and a large one, but ultimately he was a bigoted fool who far too often let that be known. Let's hope Abe fails as badly as Nakasone did with trying to change the Constitution.

-3 ( +13 / -16 )

Never a good move to speak ill of the recently-deceased.

I’m saying nowt...,

9 ( +13 / -4 )

 But his career was shadowed by links to a huge political scandal, a stocks-for-favors scam.

Was that the Recruit scandal?

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I admired him as one of the first Japanese Prime Ministers to stand large on the international stage

Yes, he was remarkable, a rarity among Japanese prime ministers, but I'm not sure he did it in a good way. Epitome of bubble economy, the man who completely forfeited any resemblance of independent foreign policy. Mediocrity with ambitions. In comparison to him Abe is an intellectual giant.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Wasn't he also responsible for taking the limits off of how many floors a building could be? This has led to the canyon-ization of Tokyo. I seem to recall that he was also responsible for removing zoning laws. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. I rather like the chaotic mixture of Tokyo. At any rate, at 101, RIP.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

I will always remember when have gave a New Years greeting to all Americans on national TV. I liked him. Thanks and RIP Mr. Nakasone

4 ( +9 / -5 )

 But his career was shadowed by links to a huge political scandal, a stocks-for-favors scam.

Was that the Recruit scandal?

The Recruit scandal occurred while Takeshita was prime minister.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

@ W Slifko

But Nakasone was very much implicated....

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Japanese will miss him . . . Ganbatte!

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

I was honored to meet former PM while visiting Japan in 90s as an officer serving in US military.

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

He also said something about Blacks and other minorities, that made him, have to eat his words

5 ( +6 / -1 )

The comment that he made which made me laugh the most was that Japanese people were like Japanese rice, gluttonous and sticking together, unlike foreigners whose foreign rice was dry and falls apart between the chopsticks.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

As the years went on, Nakasone's well-known reputation for being borderline unrepentant and unapologetic about Japan's imperial past looked increasingly negative, akin to some southern white American politician waxing nostalgic about the days of racial segregation south of the Mason-Dixon Line. His near-contemporary Murayama Tomiichi, Socialist prime minister a decade after Nakasone and still living at the age of 95, looks to many like the bigger man with the passage of time.

Being sympathetic to a "Lost Cause" is a lost cause, whether you're a white person in South Carolina thinking about the Civil War or a Japanese person in Tokyo thinking about World War II.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

A true leader. Sad to see him go.

-8 ( +0 / -8 )

Nakasone once said Japan would make use of U.S. troops stationed in Japan as guard dogs so that there wouldn't be any conflicts in East Asia. He might have uttered these words to palliate the nation's concerns that he had conceded too much to Washington as regards security, nuclear power and such.

Nakasone also vainly boasted how smart the Japanese people were. Looking at the current affairs in which the U.S. Forces Japan have every right to use bases and facilities in Japan with impunity, one cannot help but think otherwise.

Japan's nuclear power policy initiated by his government must also be scrutinized in detail.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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