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Japan The Status of the Emperor
In the Meiji Constitution, the emperor was sovereign
and was
the locus of the state's legitimacy. The preamble stated,
"The
rights of sovereignty of the State, We have inherited from
Our
Ancestors, and We shall bequeath them to Our descendants."
In the
postwar constitution, the emperor's role in the political
system
was drastically redefined. A prior and important step in
this
process was Emperor Hirohito's 1946 New Year's speech,
made at the
prompting of MacArthur, renouncing his status as a divine
ruler.
Hirohito declared that relations between the ruler and his
people
cannot be based on "the false conception that the emperor
is divine
or that the Japanese people are superior to other races."
In the first article of the new constitution, the newly
"humanized" ruler is described as "the symbol of the State
and of
the unity of the people, deriving his position from the
will of the
people with whom resides sovereign power." The authority
of the
emperor as sovereign in the 1889 constitution was broad
and
undefined. His functions under the postwar system are
narrow,
specific, and largely ceremonial, confined to such
activities as
convening the Diet, bestowing decorations on deserving
citizens,
and receiving foreign ambassadors (Article 7). He does not
possess
"powers related to government" (Article 4). The change in
the
emperor's status was designed to preclude the possibility
of
military or bureaucratic cliques exercising broad and
irresponsible
powers "in the emperor's name"--a prominent feature of
1930s
extremism. The constitution defines the Diet as the
"highest organ
of state power" (Article 41), accountable not to the
monarch but to
the people who elected its members.
The use of the Japanese word shocho, meaning
symbol, to
describe the emperor is unusual and, depending upon one's
viewpoint, conveniently or frustratingly vague. The
emperor is
neither head of state nor sovereign, as are many European
constitutional monarchs, although in October 1988 Japan's
Ministry
of Foreign Affairs claimed, controversially, that the
emperor is
the country's sovereign in the context of its external
relations.
Nor does the emperor have an official priestly or
religious role.
Although he continues to perform ancient rituals, such as
ceremonial planting of the rice crop in spring, he does so
in a
private capacity.
Laws relating to the imperial house must be approved by
the
Diet. Under the old system, the Imperial Household Law was
separate
from and equal with the constitution. After the war, the
imperial
family's extensive estates were confiscated and its
finances placed
under control of the Imperial Household Agency, part of
the Office
of the Prime Minister and theoretically subject to the
Diet. In
practice remains a bastion of conservatism, its officials
shrouding
the activities of the emperor and his family behind a
"chrysanthemum curtain" (the chrysanthemum being the crest
of the
imperial house) to maintain an aura of sanctity. Despite
knowledge
of his illness among the press corps and other observers,
details
about the late Emperor Hirohito's state of health in 1988
and 1989
were tightly controlled. The use of the masculine pronoun
to
describe the emperor is appropriate because the Imperial
Household
Law still restricts the succession to males, despite the
fact that
in earlier centuries some of Japan's rulers had been
females
(see Nara and Heian Periods, A.D. 710-1185
, ch. 1).
The emperor's constitutional status became a focus of
renewed
public attention following news of Hirohito's serious
illness in
late 1988. Crown Prince Akihito became the first person to
ascend
the throne under the postwar system. One important
symbolic issue
was the choice of a new reign title under the gengo
system--
borrowed originally from imperial China and used before
1945--
which enumerates years beginning with the first year of a
monarch's
reign. Thus 1988 was Showa 63, the sixty-third year of the
reign of
Hirohito, the Showa Emperor. The accession of a new
monarch is
marked by the naming of a new era that consists of two
auspicious
Chinese characters. Showa, for example, means
bright
harmony. Critics deplored the secrecy with which such
titles were
chosen in the past, the decision being left to a
governmentappointed committee of experts, and advocated public
discussion of
the choice as a reflection of Japan's democratic values.
Although
the gengo system was accorded official status by a
bill the
Diet passed in June 1979, some favored the system's
abandonment
altogether in favor of the Western calendar. But on
January 7,
1989, the day of Hirohito's death, the government
announced that
Heisei (Achieving Peace) was the new era name. The first
year of
Heisei thus was 1989, and all official documents were so
dated.
Still more controversial were the ceremonies held in
connection
with the late emperor's funeral and the new emperor's
accession.
State support of these activities would have violated
Article 20 of
the constitution on the separation of state and religious
activities. Rightists, such as members of the Society to
Protect
Japan (Nihon o Mamoru Kai), a nationwide lobbying group,
demanded
full public support of the ceremonies as expression of the
people's
love for their monarch. Walking a tightrope between proconstitution and rightist groups, the government chose to
divide
Hirohito's state funeral, held February 24, 1989, into
official and
religious components. Akihito's accession to the throne in
November
1990 also had religious (Shinto) and secular components:
the Sokuino -rei, or Enthronement Ceremony, was secular; the Daij
sai, or
Great Thanksgiving Festival, traditionally, a communion
between the
new monarch and the gods in which the monarch himself
became a
deity, was religious. The government's decision to use
public funds
not only for the Sokui-no-rei but also for the Daijosai,
justified
in terms of the "public nature" of both ceremonies, was
seen by
religious and opposition groups as a serious violation of
Article
20.
In the early 1990s, an array of such symbolic political
issues
brought attention to the state's role in religious or
quasireligious activities. Defenders of the constitution,
including
Japanese Christians, followers of new religions, leftists,
and many
members of the political opposition, considered any
government
involvement in religious aspects of the enthronement to be
a
conservative attempt to undermine the spirit, if not the
letter, of
the constitution. They also strongly criticized the 1989
Ministry
of Education, Science, and Culture's controversial
directive, which
called for the playing of the prewar national anthem
("Kimigayo,"
or "The Sovereign's Reign") and display of the rising sun
flag
(Hinomaru, the use of which dates to the early nineteenth
century)
at public school ceremonies. Although since the late 1950s
these
activities had been described by the ministry as
"desirable,"
neither had legal status under the postwar constitution.
Another issue was state support for the Yasukuni
Shrine. This
shrine, located in Tokyo near the Imperial Palace, was
established
during the Meiji era as a repository for the souls of
soldiers and
sailors who died in battle, thus a holy place rather than
simply a
war memorial. Conservatives introduced bills five times
during the
1970s to make it a "national establishment," but none was
adopted.
On the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II in
Japan, on
August 15, 1985, Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro and
members of
his cabinet visited the shrine in an official capacity, an
action
viewed as a renewed conservative effort, outside the Diet,
to
invest the shrine with official status.
Despite the veneer of Westernization and Article 20's
prohibition of state support of the emperor's religious or
ceremonial activities, his postwar role was in some ways
more like
that of traditional rather than prewar emperors. During
the Meiji
(1868-1912), Taisho (1912-26), and early Showa (1926-89)
eras, the
emperor himself was not actively involved in politics. His
political authority, however, was immense, and military
and
bureaucratic elites acted in his name. The "symbolic" role
of the
emperor after 1945, however, recalled feudal Japan, where
political
power was monopolized and exercised by the shoguns, and
where the
imperial court carried on a leisurely, apolitical
existence in the
ancient capital of Kyoto and served as patrons of culture
and the
arts
(see Kamakura and Muromachi Periods, 1185-1573
, ch. 1;
Religious and Philosophical Traditions
, ch. 2).
Emperor Akihito, in an effort to put a modern face on
the
Japanese monarchy, held a press conference on August 7,
1989, his
first since ascending to the throne. He expressed his
determination
to respect the constitution and promote international
understanding.
Data as of January 1994
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