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The Sho¯Wa Emperor's State Visit to Britain, October 1971

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The Sho¯Wa Emperor's State Visit to Britain, October 1971 PART II: ROYAL MATTERS 6 The Sho¯wa Emperor’s State Visit to Britain, October 1971 HUGH CORTAZZI Sho¯wa Emperor in the 1970s INTRODUCTION The Sho¯wa Emperor (Hirohito) of Japan and the Empress made a state visit to Britain 5–8 October 1971. The visit was not only the first Japanese state visit to Britain but was also the first time that a reigning Emperor had ever made visits abroad. It helped to reaffirm relations between the British Royal and the Japanese Imperial families and underlined the British government’s wish to end the hostility towards Japan which had continued in some parts of the media and among former prisoners of war since the end of the Second World War. BACKGROUND The first visit by a member of the British Royal family to Japan after the war was made by Princess Alexandra of Kent in the autumn of 1961. The visit was proposed by the British but was taken up with enthusiasm by the Japanese who accorded her almost the status of a head of state. They made a special train available for part of her visit and put her up in Kyoto in the Sento¯palace. She was entertained by 53 BRITAIN & JAPAN: BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS VOLUME VI the Emperor and Empress and it was intimated from London that there would be no objection to his wearing the insignia of the Garter although his name and banner had been removed from the chapel in Windsor following the outbreak of war with Japan. Princess Alexandra revisited Japan in 1965 to open the British Trade exhibition and although she was not the guest of the Japanese on this occasion she was warmly received by members of the imperial family. Princess Margaret, accompanied by Lord Snowdon, visited Japan in 1969 for the ‘British Week’, which was held in Tokyo that autumn. British Week included exhibitions and sales of British Consumer Goods in all the main department stores as well as exhibitions in the Budo¯kan and the Science Museum. In 1970, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, visited Japan to attend the Osaka Exposition (EXPO 70). The Crown Prince (Akihito, later the Heisei Emperor) had attended the Coronation in 1953.1 Princess Chichibu2 visited Britain as a guest of the British Government and came again in 1967 to attend the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Japan Society in London. Prince and Princess Hitachi on their honeymoon in 1965 were made official guests of the government. In April 1966,3 Sir Francis Rundall, the British Ambassador at Tokyo, who was on home leave had asked about the possibility of the Queen making a state visit to Japan and this immediately raised the question of the Emperor responding by visiting Britain. Arthur de la Mare, assistant under-secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who had served in Japan both before and after the war, thought it quite out of the question that the Emperor would be allowed to leave the country. It was nevertheless decided to make it clear to the Japanese authorities that a visit by the Emperor as part of an exchange of state visits would be welcomed. This message was passed by Sir Francis to Mr Harada, the then Grand Master of the Ceremonies in the Imperial household on 18 August 1966.4 Rundall reported that this news was received with ‘considerable gratification but it did not appear that the Imperial Household. .had begun to contemplate the Emperor making a trip abroad’. The ambassador was told ‘a great deal about the age old tradition’ that the Emperor did not travel outside Japan. However, it was reported in the English lan- guage papers in Japan that on 31 August 1971 the Emperor had said that he would like to visit Europe and the Household began to think about the possibility. In October 1970,5 it was agreed that the state visit would be part of an exchange of royal visits. There were some doubts in Britain about the wisdom of issuing an invitation in the light of continuing anti- Japanese sentiments as a result of Japanese maltreatment of prisoners of war, but these were not allowed to prevail.6 54.
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