 He served as Home Minister through the Tokyo subway sarin attack of 1995, and drew attention for his personal apology to a suspect falsely accused of poisoning his wife and neighbors with sarin.At the request of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, he travelled to China in 1998 to express remorse to victims of the Nanjing massacre.Later that year, in response to a demand for further apologies by Chinese premier Jiang Zemin, Nonaka described the issue as a "finished problem."