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In Name Only: Imperial Sovereignty in Early Modern Japan Author(S): Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi Reviewed Work(S): Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol

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In Name Only: Imperial Sovereignty in Early Modern Japan Author(S): Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi Reviewed Work(S): Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol The Society for Japanese Studies In Name Only: Imperial Sovereignty in Early Modern Japan Author(s): Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter, 1991), pp. 25-57 Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/132906 . Accessed: 05/12/2011 09:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for Japanese Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Japanese Studies. http://www.jstor.org BOB TADASHI WAKABAYASHI In Name Only: ImperialSovereignty in EarlyModern Japan KokutaiMyth and Historical Consciousness In the following pages, I reexamine the issue of imperial sovereignty in the early modern (or Tokugawa)period of Japanesehistory. It is a conten- tious, emotionally charged issue closely linked to politics and historiogra- phy under Japan'smodern emperorstate. In April 1933, for example, the eminent Tokugawa specialist and Emeritus Professor Mikami Sanji wel- comed a new class of Japanesehistory majors to Tokyo Imperial Univer- sity. But he warnedthem that, concerningemperor-related topics, "You're going to study true history here; just don't teach it to your pupils after you become teachers."' The next month, Ministerof EducationHatoyama Ichir6 dismissed Kyoto ImperialUniversity law professorTakigawa Yuki- tora for harboringand disseminatinganti-emperor "dangerous thought."2 Mikami'scensorship of "true" history and the government'spersecution of Takigawain 1933 foreshadowedthe Minobe Incidentof 1935, which epito- mized prewarJapan's brutal suppression of political dissent, academicfree- An earlier version of this article was presentedat the Midwest JapanSeminar and Asso- ciation for Asian Studies Midwest Conferenceon October28, 1989. My thanks go to Susan Long, who organizedthat panel, and to Mikiso Hane, Koji Taira, JacksonBailey, and Diana Wright-Fossfor helpful comments. I am gratefulto Suzuki Masayuki,Okamoto Koichi, Ma- ruyamaMakoto, KuriharaTamiko, and Lynne Kutsukake,who kindly secured source materi- als for me from Japan. Canada'sSocial Science and HumanitiesResearch Council provided financial supportfor this project. 1. Cited in Inoue Kiyoshi, "Tennosei no rekishi," as reprinted in Inoue, Tennosei (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai,1953), p. 3. 2. On the 1933 TakigawaIncident, see Ouchi Tsutomu, Nihon no rekishi24: Fashizumu e no michi (Tokyo: Chuo K6ronsha, 1967), pp. 360-67. The incident did little to harm Hatoyama'spostwar political career.Though initially purgedby SCAP in April 1946, he went on to serve as prime minister,heading three cabinets from December 1954 to December 1956. 25 Journalof JapaneseStudies, 17:1 ? 1991 Society for JapaneseStudies 26 Journal of Japanese Studies dom, and civil liberties in the name of "clarifyingour kokutai"along the road to fascism and war. Most of Japan'spostwar historical profession, having sufferedthrough these and even more unpleasantprewar and wartimeexperiences, has dedi- cated itself to refuting kokutai dogmas and myths propagated by the old emperor state. Some of the more prominentof these include belief in: a harmonious family state under direct imperial rule since 660 B.C., widespreadpopular reverence for the emperorthroughout Japan's history, and the superiorityof the Japaneserace due to its divine origins. Postwar Marxist historians in particularhave been at the forefront of this myth- debunking crusade, striving to prove that emperorsdid not actually rule and commoners did not truly revere them as deities during most of Japa- nese history. As HattoriShis6 explained in 1948, ancientand modernJapan suffered from imperial despotism; but "the emperorsystem lost real power in be- tween those eras, when it existed 'in name only,' as underour new [1947] constitution."3In 1946, Inoue Kiyoshi arguedthat the imperial institution had always been totally divorced from the people's daily lives. He pro- vocatively asserted that early Meiji commonersdid not even know of the emperor'sexistence; they had to be introducedto him and informedof his divine lineage thus: "The emperor is descended from the Sun Goddess Amaterasuand has been master [nushi] of Japansince the world began."4 Leftist Japanese intellectuals today, from academic historians such as FujiwaraAkira to best-seller novelists such as MorimuraSeiichi, still sub- scribe to Inoue's thesis of commonerignorance about the emperor.5 This postwar Japanese abhorrence to and repudiation of kokutai dogmas and myths is by no means limited to Marxists. In fact, the non- Marxist legal historianIshii Ryosuke producedwhat became postwarhis- toriographicorthodoxy on the emperor system in his 1950 opus, Tenn6: Tenni t6chi no shitekikaimei (The emperor:a historicalclarification of im- perial rule). Accordingto Ishii, Japan's"normal" political system and "true" tradi- tion of government was for emperors not to rule; they actually wielded power only from Nara to early Heian times and from 1868 to 1945. But those eras were anomalieswithin Japanesehistory as a whole because they 3. HattoriShis6, "Tenn6sei zettaishugino kakuritsu,"in NaramotoTatsuya, ed., Hat- tori Shis6 zenshi, Vol. 10 (Tokyo:Fukumura Shuppan, 1974), p. 125. 4. Quoted by Inoue in Tenn6sei, pp. 15-16. 5. See FujiwaraAkira, Yoshida Yutaka, Ito Satoru, and Kunugi Toshihiro, Tenno no Sh6wa-shi (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha,1984), p. 15; MorimuraSeiichi, "Watakushino naka no Showa tenno," Sekai, March 1989, p. 99. Wakabayashi: Imperial Sovereignty 27 witnessed the full-scale importationof alien despotic political models from China and the West. Ishii argued that the emperor had not empowered TokugawaIeyasu to govern Japanby naming him shogun in 1603, for no one can delegate powers he does not have. Thus, grantingthe shogunaltitle did not constitute an "imperialinvestiture" of power, as standardexplana- tions held. Instead, Ieyasu empowered himself to rule by achieving mili- tary hegemony in the realm. Emperorsin the early modernperiod enjoyed but three prerogatives:to grant court ranks and office titles, select era names, and promulgatethe calendar.Yet even these functions meant noth- ing because they in fact were dictatedby Edo.6 The 1962 draft version of lenaga Saburo's controversialhigh-school text, Shin Nihon-shi, expandedon Ishii's thesis, statingthat "emperorslost their position as sovereigns [kunshu]"at the startof the Tokugawaperiod. But the Ministry of Educationcensored this passage in 1965, retortingthat "emperors did indeed remain sovereigns, though only formally. This is clear because shogun . were appointed by the emperor; and shogun, daimyo, and bakufubannermen were appointed to court office under the ritsuryo system." 7 But regardlessof the Ministry of Education'sstand in this controversy, the scholarly consensus among postwar academic historians in Japan and the West generally upholds Ishii.8 Though revisionism began to appear in the 1980s, most historians would agree that Tokugawa-eraemperors closely resemble postwaremperors: In both eras, they were (are) politically impotent "symbols" of the state, not actualruling sovereigns.9As Ishii put it, the emperor's"appointing" of shogun from 1603 to 1867 was an empty formality, just as the emperor's "appointing" of prime ministers or su- 6. Ishii Ry6suke, Tenno: Tenn6 tochi no shiteki kaimei (Tokyo: K6bundo, 1950), pp. 1-6 and 216-26. Note that in a 1982 reprintedition, Ishii altered his subtitle to read "Tennono seisei oyobi fushinsei no dento" (The emperor'sgenesis and traditionof non-rule). Ishii's views have not changed since 1950. For recent reiterations,see Ishii, Shimpen Edo jidai mampitsu ge (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1979), pp. 5-13 and 46-52; also Ishii Ryosuke and MurakamiTadashi, "Hoseishi karamita cho-bakukankeishi," in Rekishikoron, No. 107 (October 1984), pp. 126-46. 7. Emphasis added. See Ienaga Sabur6, "Ky6iku gy6sei ni shimesarerutennoseizo," in Gendai to shis6, No. 15 (March 1974), p. 74; Ochiai Nobutaka, "Rekishi ky6kasho ni okeru tenno no jojutsu," in Rekishi hyoron, No. 314 (June 1976), p. 72. 8. For Western scholarship, see, for example, Herschel Webb, The Japanese Imperial Institutionin the TokugawaPeriod (New York:Columbia University Press, 1968). 9. For criticism of the Ishii thesis stressing its insidious implicationsfor the present, see Miyaji Masato, "Sengo tennosei no tokushitsu," Rekishi hyoron, No. 364 (August 1980), p. 28; TakahashiHikohiro, "Shocho tennosei no rikai o megutte," in Rekishigakukenkyiu, No. 593 (May 1989); and AkasakaNorio, "Tennofushinsei to iu kyoz6," in Sekai, February 1990, pp. 223-31. 28 Journal of Japanese Studies preme court chief justices has been since 1947 underArticle Six of Japan's postwar constitution.10 Withoutdoubt, emperorsin early modernJapan were impotentand the imperial court in Kyoto survived due to bakufulargesse. The Tokugawa military regime in Edo exercised de facto sovereign power. The shogun, not the emperor, took responsibility for Japan'sdefense and foreign re- lations; the shogun, not the emperor, conferred lands to daimyo and confiscated these
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