Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has died at the age of 101, Japanese state media reported Friday.
Nakasone is best known for trying to amend the country's pacifist constitution and was a close friend of the late US President Ronald Reagan.
Nakasone, a conservative politician who has mastered the English language unlike former prime ministers, has dominated Japan's political landscape for decades and gained widespread international recognition.
Nakasone served as Japan's prime minister from 1982 to 1987, but failed to achieve his goal of changing the country's post-World War II constitution, an issue still hotly debated in the country today.
On one occasion, Nakasone said Japan should be able to support its interests through military means and called for a strong military alliance with the United States, given its close ties with Reagan.
At home the bureaucrats fought for sweeping reforms. These include the privatization of railways, telecommunications and the tobacco industry. But critics say he has failed to implement a package of reform proposals to help Japan's economy grow.
There is strong opposition to changing Japan's pacifist constitution, drafted with victorious Americans in World War II, due to persistent concerns about memories of Japanese wartime aggression.
In 1983, he became the first Japanese prime minister to pay an official visit to South Korea, repairing relations with a Japanese-colonized country from 1910 to 1945.
Nakasone was a LDP leader.
He was born in the mountainous Takasaki region northwest of Tokyo on May 27, 1918, to a wealthy father who works in the wood trade. He graduated from the University of Tokyo before working for the Interior Ministry in 1941.
He joined the Tokyo Police Department after Japan's surrender in World War II in 1945. He has two daughters and a son, a politician named Hirofumi.