TOKYO - Japan has been spared the
horrifying prospect of a future reigning empress
with the birth of a boy to Princess Kiko, wife of
Emperor Akihito's second son Prince Akishino, the
first male heir born into the imperial family in
more than four decades.
The immediate
result of the boy's birth will be to put off
indefinitely any changes in the laws governing
succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne that would
allow a woman to become an empress in her own
right. That will please conservatives who had
been
scandalized at the thought of any changes in the
country's male-only succession law.
The
child was delivered by a Caesarian section - a
first for the Japanese imperial family - and the
birth was attended by no fewer than 10 medical
professionals. Although the sex of the baby was
almost certainly known to the family and senior
officials of the government, it was not publicized
in advance. He will be named next Tuesday.
Japanese had begun to give up hope that
male succession could be assured beyond Crown
Prince Naruhito, 46, and his younger brother,
Akishino, 40. The latter has two daughters, and
the crown prince and his popular consort, Crown
Princess Masako, recently gave birth to another
daughter, Aiko, in 2001. But Masako is 42 and has
had difficulty conceiving before.
Although
it is difficult to penetrate the walls of secrecy
that envelop the Japanese imperial family, one can
easily speculate that pressure was brought to bear
on Princess Kiko to have another child. After all,
the princess, now 39, last gave birth 11 years
ago.
Japan's succession crisis arises
because the Imperial Household Law mandates that
"the Imperial Throne of Japan shall be succeeded
to by male descendants in the male line of
Imperial Ancestors". The law was passed during the
years of the US occupation following World War II,
which is strange, since elsewhere, as in the
constitution, the Americans mandated equality of
the sexes.
The Americans also abolished
the aristocracy, which is why all the males in the
family, from Emperor Akihito on down, have married
commoners. It works for men, but not for women.
When Princess Sayako married a Tokyo civil servant
last October, she left the imperial family and
became a commoner. Any child she and her husband
had could not succeed to the throne, since it
would be tantamount to forming a new dynasty.
How to ensure the future survival of the
imperial family - and the imperial system itself -
has therefore been a hot subject of debate in
recent years. A private panel of advisers to Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi released a report last
November recommending a break with a male-lineage
tradition that dates back to mythical times by
allowing females and their descendants to ascend
the throne.
The panel report pointed out,
among other things:
There is a possibility in the near future that
the imperial family will be faced with a dearth of
eligible heirs to the throne. A system to make
succession stable on a long-term basis is
indispensable.
The inclusion of women and family members
outside the male lineage is in line with the
changes in society, and will be meaningful if the
principle of hereditary succession is to be stably
preserved. It is appropriate that eligibility be
awarded to female members and members outside the
male lineage.
The order of ascension should be determined by
age, with the first child claiming first priority.
A female member of the imperial family should
be allowed to keep her status after she marries a
commoner. Her spouse and children would also have
to be included in the imperial family.
Koizumi initially supported the proposed
changes. In January at the opening of the diet
(parliament), he vowed to push through the new law
during the session, which closed in June. Opinion
polls, conducted after the panel report was
released, showed that a majority of the Japanese
public also supported a reigning empress,
primarily from the viewpoint of gender equality.
But influential conservatives strongly
opposed any relaxation in the male-only provision,
arguing that it would interrupt an unbroken line
of succession that stretches back 2,700 years to
the mythical first Emperor Jimmu. There have been
eight female emperors, with the last one,
Gosakuramachi, reigning from 1762 to 1770. But
they were either single or widowed and held the
throne only temporarily until a suitable male was
installed.
Although Koizumi, a
conservative known for his frequent official
visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, did support changes
to the male-only succession, his presumed
successor, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, is
known to have opposed the panel's recommendations.
After Kiko gave birth of a boy, Abe told reporters
that the government should discuss the idea of
revising the Imperial House Law to pave the way
for female monarchs ''in a careful manner'', a
politic way of saying, "Forget it."
As to
how the imperial men would get around the
biological barriers, conservatives had little to
suggest other than to revive concubinage. That
would have been anathema to the crown prince,
whose marriage to Masako Owada was clearly a love
match and celebrated as such by a wide section of
the Japanese public.
Indeed, his
grandfather, the Showa Emperor (Hirohito), had
resisted taking a concubine after he and his
empress gave birth to a worrying succession of
daughters until the birth of Akihito, the current
emperor.
When in February Princess Kiko's
pregnancy was announced, and the prospect of a
male heir suddenly seemed realistic again, the
proposal to change the succession law was
withdrawn with the speed of summer lightning and
all debate on the succession ceased, no doubt to
be kicked to another generation.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.
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