Former Japanese Finance Minister Is Found Dead

Shoichi Nakagawa, the former Japanese finance minister who resigned after appearing to be drunk at an international meeting this year, was found dead Sunday.

Mr. Nakagawa, 56, was found in his bedroom early Sunday, the Tokyo police said. The cause of his death was under investigation.

A Tokyo native with boyish looks and a sharp tongue, Mr. Nakagawa was an outspoken conservative and a heavyweight in the recently ousted Liberal Democratic Party. He was a close associate of former Prime Minister Taro Aso, serving in key ministerial posts in agriculture, trade and finance.

But after his resignation as finance minister in February, Mr. Nakagawa also lost his Parliament seat in August in landmark elections that handed power to an opposition party.

A staunch critic of China, Mr. Nakagawa frequently warned of the rising military might of Japan’s neighbor. He was a voice for the Japanese right and a loyal supporter of Yasukuni, a contentious Tokyo war shrine that honors the war dead, including executed war criminals. He denied that the Japanese imperial army forced women into sexual slavery in the 1930s and ’40s.