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Japan's Imperial Family in Crisis

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Japan's Imperial Family in Crisis Volume 2 | Issue 6 | Article ID 1936 | Jun 25, 2004 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Trouble at the Top: Japan's Imperial Family in Crisis David McNeill, Herbert P. Bix Trouble at the Top: Japan's Imperial he entered the room. We would leave directly Family in Crisis afterward. by David McNeill and Herbert P. Bix I mention this incident to give a flavor of the life of the beleaguered Princess Masako since Introduction (DMN) she gave up a diplomatic career for life beyond the royal moat. Surrounded by people like our In June this year I had the opportunity to visit handler, with their total dedication to the the inside of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo when emperor cult and the countless arcane rules I covered the official visit to Japan of Irish that structure it, and under intense pressure to Prime Minister Bertie Ahern as producea a male heir, it's all too easy to imagine correspondent for the Irish Times newspaper. the princess' state of mind. As the Imperial correspondent for Japan's top news agency On a sunny morning, I arrived with a small said: "Now you know why she has become ill. party of photographers and journalists inside There are so many old rules like these that the Palace ground, set in 300 sprawling acres must be making life unbearable for someone of greenery in the very heart of Tokyo, much of who was used to having a lot of freedom. On it off limits to the public that pays for it. We top of that she has to produce a child. I feel were met by a kunaicho (Imperial Household very sorry for her." Agency) official, a superbly unpleasant and sniffy bureaucrat, who did not feel the need to The plight of Masako is just part of a much smile or even greet us in the usual formal wider institutional crisis. Although still revered Japanese way. He immediately raised a fuss and discussed in semi-mystical terms by ultra- over the dress code of an RTE (Irish television) nationalists and a dwindling number of older cameraman, sparking a mad scramble for a Japanese raised to believe the Emperor was a jacket before our 11 am deadline to meet the god, most youngsters are indifferent to the Emperor. Imperial Family. The Emperor and his offspring have struggled to find a role in a country that On the way to the Emperor's official meeting does not allow them the same outlets for room for foreign dignitaries, the Household charitable and military pursuits as the UK Agency official complained that it was "rude" to royals; like their British counterparts, the turn up in informal clothes to meet "his Japanese Imperial Family is increasingly out of majesty." He then berated me for walking in touch with social attitudes that have changed the center of the long hallway leading to the enormously, even since the death of the Showa meeting room. "Only his majesty walks in the Emperor (Hirohito) in 1989. center," he said banishing me to the edges of the carpet. In the meeting room we were told The kunaicho-driven pressure on the princess we would have 90 seconds to photograph the to have another child, despite her age and Emperor as he arrived to greet Mr. Ahern. We obviously delicate mental and physical health, should be careful not to make any noises when is representative of a particular conservative 1 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF faction in Japan that wants a male heir to Princess Masako's health (much of which preserve the institution at all costs. This faction emerged in marginal publications in Japan or in has never been particularly comfortable with the foreign press) is this: why do the the assertive, cosmopolitan aspects of the mainstream media so utterly fail to reflect this princess' character that have made her a doyen changing landscape? Here I had an opportunity of the foreign press, even though theseto talk to several senior Japanese and foreign qualities put her closer to the prevailing correspondents as well as a number of attitudes and lifestyles of contemporarycommentators on the Imperial scene. In the Japanese women, a majority of whom are second piece, Herbert Bix sets these recent working and delaying marriage and children. developments in their wider context. That this faction is increasingly at odds with The media and the Imperial Family mainstream opinion in Japan is obvious from the growing popular support for a female By David McNeill emperor, reflected even in mainstream political circles. Yoko Komiyama, shadow minister of For a family that prefers to keep a low profile justice in the opposition Democratic Party of and adopt a kind of bland civil servant image, Japan recently told a foreign reporter that 80 these are trying times for the Imperial percent of the public favored changing the Household. Swathes of the world's dwindling Constitution to allow this: "My opinion is that forests have been felled to fuel media succession should be to the first child, whether speculation on the health of Princess Masako, it is male or female, as this is an age of her relationship with her husband Prince equality." Naruhito and their struggles to produce a male heir to the world's oldest hereditary institution. All this may or not be the prelude to something Much of the blame for this unwanted attention more fundamental, a questioning of the basic lies with Naruhito himself, who sparked the role of the monarchy perhaps in a country latest media feeding frenzy with a barbed press where such discussion has until now been conference in May.[1] successfully hemmed in by conservative political opinion, a largely pliant media and the Since 1965, the emperor has watched his not insignificant threat of ultra-right violence. offspring bring nine female babies into the The current Emperor Akihito is ill with cancer world and not a single male, a poor batting at 70. His 44-year old son Naruhito, Masako's average that once would have been solved by husband, who is next in line to thepressing into service an Imperial womb-for-hire Chrysanthemum throne, has given many signs (known as 'karibara'). Today, the responsibility that he dislikes the current setup. There has for continuing the purportedly 2600-year been a notable weakening in the taboo-value of patriarchal line has fallen on the frail shoulders the Imperial institution since 1989 and much of of the ex-Ms. Owada Masako. Unsurprisingly, the family's dirty linen is regularly washed in she seems to have buckled under the pressure. public forums such as the weekly female press. No sane commentator would write off an Following her husband's press conference, the institution that is still of enormous symbolic media speculated that the princess was and political value to conservatives in Japan, depressed and had had a nervous breakdown, but clearly significant change looms. possibly following a lapse into the language of the stud farm last year by the Imperial The question explored in the first of the two Household Agency's Grand Steward, Yuasa pieces below inspired by the recent flap over Toshio, who said that he wanted the couple to 2 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF have another child. Masako, said the press, still surround the Imperial Family, which are may be refusing to sleep with her husband and very murky and not rational and which have a is terribly worried about her daughter Aiko, lot to do with Japan's war and postwar history. who may have a developmental disorder. This period has not been properly dispelled or Relations between her and the Emperor and digested. There is still unfinished business." Empress are extremely poor and "she is waiting for them to die." Not one reporter ever asked Emperor Hirohito about his responsibility for the war in Asia, But which media are responsible for these potentially one of the great stories of the last stories? Not the big news gatheringhalf-century. This is despite the enormous pool organizations in Japan which despite (or as of journalists assigned to cover the Imperial many prefer to argue, because of) their Household Agency from the press club on the exclusive membership in the IHA press club second floor of its headquarters. According to seldom report major scoops. Famously, it was one former Imperial correspondent for a major the Washington Post that first told the world newspaper: "At any one time about 20 to 25 about Princess Masako's engagement tojournalists from different news organizations Naruhito in 1993, after the local newspapers cover it, but there are hundreds of journalists had sat on the story for months. It was the registered in the IHA press club, in case of an London Independent that suggested in 2001 accident or incident related to the Emperor. In that Princess Aiko was the product of in-vitro our newspaper alone, there are 30 people fertilization, although it was widely rumored in registered. It's a huge club." Japan. And it was The Times that carried most of the above detail about Masako's current These journalists have exclusive access to condition in a May 21st piece called "The briefings by agency officials and Imperial Depression of a Princess." family members, and usually prepare their questions collectively before submitting them It's all part of a long tradition of royal reporting for vetting, shunning most sensitive issues. in Japan by Big Media: kid gloves lobbing the Their dismal performance over the years has softest of softballs to an institution that still earned the establishment press in Japan a seems suspended somewhere between heaven reputation for at best timidity, at worst and earth in the journalistic pantheon.
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