Editing Yasuhiro Nakasone (section)

==Later political life==
[[File:Mulroney Thatcher and Gorbachev at Reagan's funeral.jpg|right|thumb|200px|With former [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] President [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], former Canadian [[Prime Minister of Canada|Prime Minister]] [[Brian Mulroney]], and former [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|UK Prime Minister]] [[Margaret Thatcher]] (at the [[funeral of Ronald Reagan|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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-10-fi-1948-story.html|title=Ex-Executive Is Sentenced in Japan's Recruit Scandal|date=10 October 1990|website=Los Angeles Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/10/business/big-conviction-in-recruit-scandal.html|title=Big Conviction in Recruit Scandal|first=David E.|last=Sanger|work=The New York Times|date=10 October 1990}}</ref>

Although he remained in the Diet for another decade and a half, his influence gradually waned. In 2003, despite a fight,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2003/10/24/national/single-seat-constituencies-offer-refuge-for-ldp-elders-who-refuse-to-retire/#.XeDWOPZuI2w|title=Single-seat constituencies offer refuge for LDP elders who refuse to retire|publisher=The Japan Times|date=24 October 2003|access-date=29 November 2019}}</ref> 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 of Japan|Diet]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20191129_28/|title=Yasuhiro Nakasone dies|work=NHK World-Japan News|date=28 November 2019|access-date=30 November 2019}}</ref>

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 [[Democratic Party of Japan|second political party]] as a step toward true democracy".<ref name="NYT01" /> "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 Island|Okinawa]] [and the American military base there] can be solved by talking together."<ref name="NYT01" />