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AKIHITO and the PROBLEM of SUCCESSION Takahashi Hiroshi

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AKIHITO and the PROBLEM of SUCCESSION Takahashi Hiroshi AKIHITO AND THE PROBLEM OF SUCCESSION Takahashi Hiroshi The Problem of Succession On 6 September 2006 a baby boy, Prince Hisahito, the fi rst son of Prince Akishino, younger brother of Crown Prince Naruhito, was born into the Japanese imperial family. He immediately became third in succession to the imperial throne. Never before had the birth of a child into the imperial family been the cause of so much excitement in Japan and abroad. ‘It’s a boy!’ announced the female newscaster of CNN, her voice brimming with excitement, while the BBC made the fi rst birth of a baby boy into the Japanese royal family in over four decades a top news item of the day.1 It was also the fi rst birth of a boy in the imperial family in the Heisei era, which started in 1989 with the reign of Akihito. I spent the entire day of 6 September 2006 in a TBS (Tokyo Broad- casting Service) studio in Tokyo, commentating as a guest panelist on matters to do with the imperial family. Scenes of the joyous celebra- tions throughout the nation were streamed through to us on the studio monitors: people putting up colorful carp-shaped fl ags, traditionally used to mark Boys’ Day, in front of Tokyo’s Mejiro Station, the station that serves Gakushūin University (formerly the Peers School), where Prince Akishino met his wife; and shopkeepers handing out cups of sake to passers-by in the street. The whole nation seemed to be sharing in the festive mood. The Imperial Household Law restricts succession to the imperial throne of Japan to ‘male descendents in the male line’ (dankei dan- shi )—that is to say, males born to male members of male lineage.2 Unfortunately however, for more than forty years—ever since the birth in 1965 of the father of this latest baby prince—the Japanese imperial 1 As reported by Kyodo News, 6 September 2006. 2 The Imperial Household Law was originally enacted in 1889, at the same time as the Meiji Constitution. It was revised in the wake of defeat in 1945, but no change was made to the stipulation that succession should be limited to male descendents in the male line. 314 takahashi hiroshi family had not been blessed with a single male child. To fi nd a solu- tion to this problem, Prime Minster Koizumi Jun’ichirō in December 2004 set up a panel of experts, the kōshitsu tempan ni kansuru yūshikisha kaigi (Advisory Council on Imperial Household Law), to put together recommendations for amendments in the succession law in order to ensure the stability of the imperial throne. The panel submitted its report in November 2005, recommending that imperial succession should take place on the basis of primogeniture, regardless of sex. This would widen the scope of imperial candidates, opening the way to both female emperors and emperors born of female lineage. I served as an expert witness for this council, and my views were refl ected in the fi nal recommendations. The question of whether imperial succession should be restricted to males or expanded to females has been a topic of general debate in Japan for well over two years. But with the birth of the fi rst imperial prince in over four decades, the Japanese media went into a frenzy of excitement, producing a mood of celebration that has prevailed ever since. It is as if the problem of ensuring the stability of imperial suc- cession has been resolved. All of a sudden, politicians and the media started advocating caution about the amendment. Generally speaking, in Japan, any issue to do with the imperial family is extremely sensi- tive, and any mishandling of such issues can cause considerable loss of prestige for the government. Following the birth of Hisahito, Prime Minister Koizumi shelved the planned revision of the Imperial House- hold Law, even though his party enjoyed an overwhelming majority in the Diet. He bowed to the pressure from right-wing Diet members, who argued that Japan should respect the ‘tradition’ of the imperial family. The cabinet of his successor, Abe Shinzō, formed in September 2006, hardly discussed this matter and if anything, avoided it. Nevertheless, if no revision is made to the Imperial Household Law, the future of the imperial family will continue to remain in jeopardy. All that the recent birth of the imperial prince has done is to increase the number of heirs to the Chrysanthemum Throne by one. Director of the Imperial Household Agency Hakeda Shingo expressed his concern about the precarious situation when he cautioned against the overly festive mood in the country. At a press conference on 12 September 2006, soon after the prince’s birth, he said:.
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