Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, a conservative politician who died Friday at the age of 101, is recognized in China as the leader who helped usher in a so-called honeymoon-like period in bilateral relations with Japan in the 1980s.

In 1985, however, he made an official state visit as prime minister to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where convicted Class-A war criminals are honored along with millions of war dead, sparking a controversy between the nations.

Nakasone, who was prime minister from November 1982 to November 1987, was known for building a solid relationship of trust with the late Hu Yaobang, a former general secretary of China's Communist Party.