Hirohito's Apparition

Volume 6 | Issue 5 | Article ID 2741 | May 03, 2008 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus War Responsibility and Historical Memory: Hirohito's Apparition Herbert P. Bix War Responsibility and Historical Memory: inflicted on the peoples of Asia and the Pacific Hirohito’s Apparition tremendous human and material losses. Over ten million Chinese died from the effects of the Herbert P. Bix war that began in 1937, with some estimates of actual deaths running twice as high. Within countries occupied after 1941 by Japanese Since the appearance ofHirohito and the forces and later fought over by the Allies, Making of Modern Japan in 2000, the massive numbers of combatants and non- unearthing in Japan of new information on the combatant civilians died, including over a Asia-Pacific war has proceeded apace.million Filipinos. Tens of thousands of war Historical war narratives using newprisoners fell into Japanese hands. Many of documentary evidence and drawing on the them died in captivity and many others from insights of various disciplines continue to US “friendly fire.” Japanese forces detained appear. Oral history, women’s history, studies 130,000 to more than 140,000 civilians for the of war prisoners and international law, even duration of the war. [3] At its end, Japan itself theories of postwar “reconciliation,” have lay prostrate, its cities in ruins, its people widened the perspectives of Japanesedemoralized. Official Japanese government historians. Thanks to the work of manyunderestimates say that 3.1 million Japanese progressive historians the ethical dimensions of died in the Asia-Pacific War. Of that number military history are being opened up and about 800,000 were non-combatant civilians, explored as never before. [1] But in nomost of them victims of American fire bombing fundamental way have these scholarly efforts and atomic bombing in the war’s final months. altered the picture of Hirohito as the activist, [4] American combat deaths of about 123,000 dynamic, politically empowered emperor who in the Pacific pale in comparison. [5] played a central role in Japan’s undeclared wars. The following discussion recapitulates The individual who oversaw these wars and in some of the arguments that I presented earlier whose name they were fought, Hirohito, was when analyzing Hirohito’s leadership at the forty-one-years-old when Japan unconditionally policy level, then goes beyond them to address surrendered its armed forces. Two decades problems of historical memory. [2] The same earlier, upon ascending the throne, he had Nuremberg and Tokyo principles of individual taken the auspicious reign-title “Showa” and state responsibility for war crimes,(“illustrious peace”). But for the emperor and however, inform this essay just as they did my his subjects, and especially for the people of book. Asia and the Pacific, there would be no peaceful times in the two decades that Introduction followed. Japan’s wars of the 1930s and early 1940s Hirohito: Japan’s Last Empowered Emperor 1 6 | 5 | 0 APJ | JF In the years between November 1921 and “enhanced the grandeur of our empire” and December 25, 1926, before the shy, taciturn never allowed himself to be treated as a Hirohito succeeded his ailing father, the Taisho puppet. emperor, he had been displayed to the Japanese nation as the dynamic representative For Hirohito, like most Western heads of state, of “young Japan,” the embodiment of Japanese empire, national defense, and national morality, the person destined to invigorate the greatness were primary. Given his strongly imperial house. Two years later the Showa opportunistic nature, he would extend Japan’s emperor and his entourage strengthened the control over China when given the chance. In monarchy’s links to state Shinto through year- other words, as a traditional imperialist and long enthronement ceremonies that mixed nationalist, he was firmly committed to Western-style military reviews with nativistic protecting Japan’s established rights and religious rites while elevating Hirohito to the interests abroad even in the face of the rising status of a living deity. world tide of anti-colonial nationalism. But he was also highly sensitive to the internal balance of political forces and even more totally dedicated to preserving the monarchy. Hirohito differed from other contemporary rulers in the type of Machiavellianism that he practiced in order to maintain the monarchy and extend the reach of the Japanese state. Like successful Western imperialists, Hirohito was able to effectively deploy the rhetoric of ethics, virtue, and morality as means to mobilize his nation for war. He and the elites who protected him treated international law as a fetter on their freedom of action and they were not averse to using scheming and trickery for purposes of national defense. [6] Hirohito Hirohito’s enthronement portrait alone, however, could display leadership by using the technique of the substantive question Hirohito’s enthronement helped to move Japan that carried the force of a command. He was in a more nationalistic direction. It was based also unique in his view of Japan’s colonial and on the theocratic myth of an imperial house semi-colonial rights as his genealogical whose destiny was defined by the emperor—a inheritance from his dead ancestors. Since human in form but actually a deity ruling the childhood he had been taught that his country in an uninterrupted line of succession. ancestors, not his living “subjects,” were the No matter what project the emperor undertook, source of his authority and the object of his his “subjects” were presumed and required to responsibility—the sole entities to whom he be absolutely loyal in “assisting” him from was morally accountable. [7] Hirohito’s denial below. In newspapers and on the radio the of responsibility for errors of policy and message echoed throughout the land that Japan judgment pervaded the entire structure of had broken with its immediate past; it now had Japanese collective decision-making. a monarch cast in the mold of his illustrious grandfather, Emperor Meiji, who (in the words The young Hirohito was neither bellicose nor of Hirohito’s first imperial rescript) hadintellectually shallow. He was serious, 2 6 | 5 | 0 APJ | JF methodical, energetic, and intelligent; he was in an era of party cabinets, Hirohito and his also physically slight and quite inarticulate. He Court Group undermined the tenuous system of had been carefully groomed to exerciseparty cabinet government that had begun to imperial oversight through building anddevelop around the time of Meiji’s death. [10] maintaining consensus so as to achieve unity in policy-making. Above all, he had been trained Meanwhile, out of public view, Hirohito was to make rational judgments as both head of slowly forming his own political space within a state and supreme commander. [8] Yet from complex system of institutions and processes, the start occasions arose when passion and designed to protect him, so that he could ideology intruded; on these occasions Hirohito, exercise positive leadership at will, and not the unifier, blundered badly. merely serve as a passive monarch sanctioning policies presented to him by the cabinet. The Meiji constitution gave him great power Hirohito tells us that over time he improved his and authority which could not be restricted by modus operandi, becoming more adept at the political parties in the Diet. It positioned practicing self-restraint and avoiding actions him at the intersection of politics and military and comments that could incur criticism. affairs—allowing him on occasion to move the entire government. Eager to assert theAfter the eruption of the Manchurian Incident prerogatives of imperial power that his own in September 1931, in the face of the global father had been unable to exercise, Hirohito, Great Depression, Japan’s domestic political with the strong encouragement of hissituation became increasingly unstable. entourage, soon fired his first prime minister. Hirohito and the men surrounding him then Their main grievance against prime minister made a series of decisions with disastrous General Tanaka Giichi, was that Tanaka wanted consequences for both China and Japan. to punish two young officers who in June 1928 Instead of demanding the punishment of had assassinated the Chinese warlord Chang insubordinate officers who had staged that Tso-lin (Japan’s chief collaborator in China’s incident, Hirohito accepted the army’s fait Manchuria), rather than hush up their crime as accompli, joined in the cover-up of the facts, Tanaka’s cabinet ministers wanted. [9] and failed to back the efforts of the incumbent party cabinet to bring the Kwantung Army to Hirohito persisted in influencing from behind heel. Only by imputation may Hirohito (who the scenes the policies and conduct of the two was following his inner circle) be deemed prime ministers that followed. In 1930 his criminally liable for these actions committed by determination to achieve arms control in senior and intermediate level officers in both concert with the US and Britain led him and his Tokyo and Manchuria who, though under his close advisers to give inadequate attention to command, were not yet under his actual consensus-building among the elites. They control. But once he had learned the true facts, forced through Japan’s acceptance of the he not only failed to punish the wrongdoers, London Naval Treaty of 1930 over thebut actively joined in aiding and abetting the objections of the navy’s minority faction, who army’s seizure of Manchuria. In these ways, believed that Japan had to be able to brandish Hirohito allowed the military in general and naval power on a par with the Anglo-Americans army field commanders in particular to if it was to achieve its national goals. The effectively take over Japan’s China policy and backlash from the minority factions in both turn it openly aggressive.

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