Japanese newspaper boss who influenced the nation’s postwar politics died at 98 | EUROtoday

Tsuneo Watanabe, the highly effective head of Japan’s largest newspaper who had shut ties with the nation’s highly effective conservative leaders, has died, his firm mentioned Thursday. He was 98.

Watanabe, the editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun for over 30 years, died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital on Thursday, the Yomiuri mentioned.

Watanabe joined the newspaper in 1950 and lined politics all through his profession, attending editorial conferences till final month. He was nonetheless checking copy in his hospital room days earlier than his loss of life, the newspaper mentioned.

Watanabe cultivated shut ties with conservative leaders who ruled the nation throughout a long time, like Yasuhiro Nakasone and Shinzo Abe, and to helped type Japan’s conservative public opinion. Abe was also referred to as a loyal reader and as soon as instructed reporters all his opinions may very well be discovered within the Yomiuri when he was requested a query a couple of proposed constitutional revision.

Watanabe stirred controversy in 1994 when the Yomiuri printed a draft revision to the pacifist structure calling for a transparent reference to the Self Defense Force, Japan’s de facto army, and different modifications at a time when such concepts have been taboo.

Born in Tokyo in May, 1926, Watanabe studied philosophy on the University of Tokyo, which was interrupted through the World War II when he was drafted into the Imperial Army, earlier than becoming a member of the Yomiuri in 1950.

Watanabe, in a variety of media interviews, criticized the wartime army for its abusive therapy of troopers and wasteful deaths. He was additionally identified for his opposition to the inclusion of conflict criminals amongst these worshipped at Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni shrine, and criticizing conservative lawmakers who visited the shrine.

Watanabe served as Washington bureau chief and head of the political information part for the paper earlier than turning into president and editor-in-chief of the Yomiuri Shimbun in 1991. He grew to become chairman of the corporate in 2004.

Despite his temporary affiliation with the communist occasion as a pupil, Watanabe transformed to staunch anti-communism.

Watanabe additionally owned the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s hottest baseball staff, and served on an advisory panel for sumo wrestling.