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JAPANESE EMPERORS.   Term Paper ID:28327 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Focus on controversial role of Emperor Hitohito in World War II & his successor Akihito. Emperorship as an enduring Japanese institution; changes from 1868 to present era; political issues & policies.... More...

18 Pages / 4050 Words 18 sources, 46 Citations, TURABIAN Format $72.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Focus on controversial role of Emperor Hitohito in World War II & his successor Akihito. Emperorship as an enduring Japanese institution; changes from 1868 to present era; political issues & policies. Paper Introduction: JAPAN'S EMPERORS: 1930S and 1940s TO THE PRESENT This research paper examines the controversial role of the Emperor Hirohito (r. 1926-1989) in Japan during the period leading up to and during the Second World War, as compared his role and that of his successor Akihito thereafter. For more than a millennium and long before American Commodore Matthew Perry's black warships entered Tokyo Bay in 1853-1854, the Imperial Throne served as an important symbol of religious, cultural and political unity as a distinctive Japanese sense of identity emerged. However, Japanese emperors reigned more than they ruled, as others exercised power in their name. Hirohito was a grandson of the Emperor Meiji (r. 1868-1912) through whom the founders of the Meiji Restoration responded to the challenge of the West by modernizing rapidly Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Bowman, Public Opinion in Americaand Japan (Storrs, CT: AEI Press, 1996), 1 5.----------------------- 23 Embracing Defeat Japan In The Wake Of World War II. Hirohito effectively forced the PrimeMinister General Giichi Tanaka to resign in July 1929 over the latter'sfailure to punish those responsible. According to Reischauer, "this was thefirst important political action a Japanese emperor had initiated in moderntimes, and it failed."[18] According to Irokawa, the emperor's advisorPrince Kinmochi Saionji told him that his action "had interfered with thesmooth operation of the Meiji Constitution" and Hirohito, who acquiesced inthe light punishment of the offenders and most of the Kwantung Army'ssubsequent actions in Manchuria, said "I decided to sanction whatever thecabinet presented to me if I did not agree with it."[19] There is little evidence that Hirohito sought thereafter to reversethe direction of Japanese policy toward China which finally led to itswithdrawal from the League of Nations after its seizure of all of Manchuriain 1931, repeated incursions into Northern China, 1932-1936, and full-scalewar with the Chinese (1937-1945) which turned into a quagmire. His aide for psychological warfare, General BonnerFellers, in a report dated April 12, 1945 stated that "Hirohito . Hirohito only became a liberal after 1945. There were some empresses as well asemperors but by about 6 , the line of descent became patriarchal. [6] Walter LaFeber, The Clash U.S.-Japanese Relations ThroughoutHistory (New York: Norton, 1997), 7. In the 197 s, he took this image abroad, whichhelped rehabilitate Japan as a member of the family of nations. Mikiso Hane and John K. Seishisai said "our Divine Land is where the sun risesand where the primordial energy originates. Urda (New York: Free Press, 1995), 71. Why? Former British Ambassador to Japan HughCortazzi said "if he had attempted to protest publicly against the war, hisviews would have been suppressed and he would have been removed from thescene."[33] Hirohito himself said "it would have been futile to oppose awar," and that if he had, he feared a coup d'etat would have resulted.[34]Dower said "he moved pragmatically with the prevailing winds."[35] Emperor Hirohito and The War (1941-1945) Hirohito gave the war effort his wholehearted support. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.Behr, Edward. However, the influence of the military was growing and in particularits ability to paralyze civilian rule by withholding its consent to newcabinets through its exclusive control after 19 over appointments to theWar and Navy Ministries. Heshowed real steel in forcing the Army to stamp out the rebellion ofFebruary 1936 by younger officer hotheads which resulted in assassinationof several high officials and the wounding of Hirohito's own GrandChamberlain Admiral Kantaro Suzuki. He said that "afterinspecting parts of bomb-damaged Tokyo in March 1945, Hirohito could nolonger harbor any illusions about the outcome of the war."[36] The Emperor performed a signal service for the Japanese nation byending the war when he did, thus sparing it from a third atomic bomb, theinvasion of the home islands and ensuing battle. Hirohito And His Times A Japanese Perspective. Showa The Age of Hirohito. 626-671),"who established the ancient imperial state," or the Emperor Godaigo (r.1288-1339, "who sought to [re]impose direct imperial rule."[4] According to Reischauer, the more general pattern was "for the man orgroup in nominal control to be, in reality, the pawn of some other man orgroup."[5] Before the 9th century, the Japanese experimented with butfinally rejected the Chinese model of the unified and centralized monarchy.Not only was considerable autonomy enjoyed by the warrior chieftains andlater powerful feudal lords, but, as LaFeber pointed out, "Japanese historyis pockmarked by uprisings, riots, and assassinations."[6] As differentclasses and groups struggled for control, Sansom said "equilibrium wasmaintained through the prestige rather than through the strength of theImperial house . Hirohito was eitherpowerless or unwilling to prevent Japan's drift toward catastrophe; and henarrowly escaped being forced to abdicate or being tried as a war criminal.He nevertheless played a key role in helping Japan to avoid an even worsefate and in easing the transition to postwar democratic politics during thecourse of which the role of the emperor become more sharply truncated. II, eds. Irokawasaid that "even fifty years after the war, the Japanese government found itdifficult to admit that the war Japan initiated and fought from 1931 to1945 was a war of aggression."[44] Nevertheless, MacArthur'srecommendations were accepted. Hirohito was exceptionally industrious, methodical andalmost obsessively concerned with detail."[22] He added that with respectto the war against China, "most of his criticisms had to do with the factthat they were not winning the war fast enough."[23] Internally, Hirohito aligned the Court with the more conservativecivilian factions which were attempting, and fairly consistently failing,to restrain the military, which after the assassination of Prime MinisterTsuyoshi Inukai on May 15, 1932 and progressively thereafter consolidated astranglehold over the government. Hisupbringing and training had stunted his ability to act independently."[15]His marriage in 1924 to the daughter of an aristocrat was arranged. . (New York:Knopf, 198 ), 4 . In the late 192 s, Japan wasplagued with serious economic difficulties, including rural poverty andlater a steep decline in its foreign export markets for silk and otherproducts which deepened in the Great Depression. He stronglyinfluenced the decision of the cabinet to accept on August 1 , 1945 thePotsdam Declaration so long as it did not prejudice the emperor's positionas "sovereign ruler," and when the somewhat Allied reply appeared to acceptthat condition, the Emperor on August 13, 1945 broke a three to threedeadlock in the Supreme War Council by making the decision to end the warby accepting the somewhat ambiguous Allied terms. [8] Kenneth B. Konoye, whose efforts on behalfof peace before the war were more conspicuous than Hirohito's, was indictedas a war criminal and committed suicide. New York: New Press, 1999.Dower, John W. [27] Butow, 169. Tojo And The Coming of War. . [22] Behr, 35. Some ofHirohito's closest associates, including Kido who received a life sentencewhich was later commuted, went to prison. [11] Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, Showa The Age of Hirohito (New York:Walker, 199 ), 7. A 1995British Gallup poll showed that only 13 percent of the Japanese publicsurveyed wanted the monarchy to be "abolished and replaced by a non-executive president like the ones they have in some continental countries"so the hold of the emperor on the people remains strong.[46] Conclusion The Japanese emperor as an institution has undergone a metamorphosisin modern times from a nominally omnipotent but actually quite tame ruler,who occasionally rose to the fore in the 193 s and 194 s, to a mereceremonial figurehead today, who nonetheless continues to occupy a uniqueplace in the imagination of the Japanese people. [14] Behr, 24. As Allinson puts it, "Japan is always changing, oftenin contradictory directions."[1] The most enduring of all Japanese institutions has been itsemperorship, which nevertheless has undergone significant changes since theMeiji Restoration of 1868 and especially since the end of World War II. Dower made a persuasive case that abdication, which was considered bymembers of the Japanese Imperial family and other leading political andintellectual figures at the time, might have been feasible and would havebeen a telling way of ensuring that the Japanese people understood thattheir entire society not just a few underlings bore moral responsibilityfor the war and the outrages committed by their forces during it. [24] Toshiaski Kawahara, Hirohito And His Time A Japanese Perspective(Tokyo: Kodansha International, 199 ), x. In Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. Itsorigins lie deeply veiled in the mists of prehistoric times. According to Butow, "aseconomic difficulties spread across the world in the late 192 s, theJapanese military gave increasing thought to 'opening a way to the future'by implementing Japan's historic mission to expand on the continent, tosecure the peace of East Asia, and to save its 6 , , million peoplefrom imperialistic 'oppression.'"[17] Through a series of incidents, rebellious elements of Japan'sKwantung Army in Manchuria, a coveted source of industrial raw materials,came into conflict with their civilian and military superiors in Tokyo andwith the outside world. [16] Irokawa, 9. [18] Reischauer, 19 . However, hewas well aware of the input of Admiral Isoruku Yamamato, the architect ofthe Pearl Harbor attack, that he could run wild for some months, but thatafter that he feared the superior weight of America's resources wouldprevail. [3 ] Paul Manning, Hirohito The War Years (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986),17. As part of this process, they adopted the Constitution of 1889which incorporated mostly German concepts, including a strong executive anda weak legislature, which were consistent with the belief of these 'topdown' reformers that "the governed should be brought into the governingprocess, not as a natural innate right but rather as a means of achievingnational unity" and of impressing the West with Japan's progressiveness.[8] The institution of the emperor loomed large in their scheme for ithad always stood for kokutai or national polity, consisting of the divinityand authority of the imperial dynasty and the stability of the hierarchicaland group-oriented social structure which had evolved over the centuries.An old Japanese proverb held that "the nail that sticks up will be hammereddown."[9] The emperor not only would be retained but his authority andinfluence with the Japanese people would be greatly enhanced. New York: New Press, 1993.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas. New York: Praeger, 1992.Irokawa, Daikichi. Hirohito The Emperor And The Man. Irokawa said the actions of the Army in Manchuria represented"serious derogations of imperial authority" yet Hirohito confined himselfto mild protests and that throughout the period 1931-1937, "the emperor didnot exercise his authority and allowed major incidents and acts ofaggression to occur."[21] Just how much Hirohito knew, then and later, about Japanese warcrimes is still open to question, but Behr said "there could be no singleindividual better informed on the state of Japan than a hard-workingJapanese emperor. [2 ] Mosley, 179. Japan A Short Cultural History. The Clash U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History. Irokawasaid when he returned, "he was very liberal, convinced of the advantage ofa free and open life style."[16] However, these impulses proved short-livedas he was nearly assassinated by a radical in 1923 and had to assume theresponsibility of regent in the late stages of his father's illness. Time after time, he sat mute atImperial Conferences at which those plans were hatched and approved. Under his stewardship, the monarchy survived the tumultuous eventsof the 193 s and 194 s but was considerably tarnished by its associationwith domestic repression, militarism, ultranationalism and Japan'sultimately disastrous foreign wars and defeat. Hirohito was a grandson of the Emperor Meiji (r. . [45] Irokawa, 1 1. C. Reischauer, Japan The Story of a Nation, 3d ed. Introduction To most non-Japanese, one of the most puzzling aspects of modernJapan is its juxtaposition of the ultramodern and the traditional in allspheres of life, such as its high-speed economic growth which has raisedJapan, a country with few natural resources, to the status of a globaleconomic superpower, which co-exists with cultural patterns which in manyrespects have remained unchanged for centuries. He did not believe that Japan had the resources to win such awar."[32] Why did he not do more to try to stop the drift toward war usinghis powers as supreme commander? Amidst the chaos,civil war and confusion of the 13 years after Perry's arrival, the agingEmperor in Kyoto served as a rallying point for all dissident elementsdisturbed by the challenge of the West, including leading intellectuals,disenchanted warrior-aristocrats or samurai, feuding provincial lords andthe rising merchant class. .He listened to his army and navy leaders and . 1868-1912) throughwhom the founders of the Meiji Restoration responded to the challenge ofthe West by modernizing rapidly Japan's economy and institutions. The same nation whichrampaged through East Asia and the Pacific region in the 3 s and 4 s,instigating wars of expansion, committing war crimes and atrocities anddefending its conquests with ferocious and fatalistic fanaticism, all thewhile trumpeting its xenophobic slogans of racist superiority to otherpeoples, has since 1945 been a model of responsible international conduct.Domestic terror and authoritarian rule have been replaced by a viable ifimperfect democracy. II., eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.----------------------- [1] Gary D. Hisdefenders, such as Butow, pointed out that after 1915 Imperial Conferences"gradually lost their free and open character" and largely performed thefunction of ratifying what had already been decided.[27] He said thatalthough the emperor attended them, he did not preside and had no veto,although he could "express his views, if he wished."[28] Once he did so, atthe Imperial Conference of September 6, 1941, when the decision had beenalready made to go to war with the West if negotiations with the UnitedStates failed, as appeared likely. Japan's Postwar History. [44] Irokawa, xv. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.Tsunoda, Ryusaku, Wm. "Preface to the New Proposal." (1825). Hirohito Behind The Myth. is apart of, and must be considered an instigator of, the Pacific War."[41]Fellers in his report, much of which MacArthur later incorporated in hisSeptember 1945 secret cable to Washington recommending against theprosecution of the Emperor, said "to dethrone, or hang, the Emperor wouldcause a tremendous and violent reaction from all Japanese."[42] MacArthurtold his superiors somewhat disingenuously that there was "no specific andtangible evidence" linking Hirohito to war crimes, but his main argumentwas that "his indictment will unquestionably cause a tremendousconvulsion," and impede democracy in Japan.[43] He estimated that onemillion troops might be needed to maintain order. By the early 19 s, the early generation of elderstatesmen or genro was passing from the scene, and conflicts emergedbetween the military, already bent on foreign expansion, and among variousparty politicians. [33] Edwin Hoyt, Hirohito The Emperor And The Man (New York: Praeger,1992), 186. Urda. [32] Mosley, 234. JAPAN'S EMPERORS: 193 S and 194 s TO THE PRESENT This research paper examines the controversial role of the EmperorHirohito (r. Thecabinet and even the military served at his pleasure as supreme commander.He was the head of the state religion, State Shinto. [9] LaFeber, 7. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice- Hall, 1966.Pyle, Kenneth B. The Ministry ofEducation's 1937 propaganda publication, Foundations of National Policy(Kokutai no hongi), stressed the superiority of Japan to other countriesbecause of its unique and unbroken imperial dynasty and described theImperial Way as follows: Loyalty means to reverence the emperor as [our] pivot and to follow him implicitly . Underthe new 1947 Constitution, the emperor was stripped of all governmentalpowers, except purely ceremonial ones. . Sources of Japanese Tradition. [12] Reischauer, 143. The difficulty was that the oligarchs wanted the emperor only toexercise these powers in theory and placed various institutions, such asthe Privy Council, royal aristocratic advisors with undefined powers,around him to curb his power in practice. A Gallup Poll in June 1945 showed 7 percent ofAmericans polled favored executing Hirohito.[4 ] Australia, New Zealand,Nationalist China and the Soviet Union all demanded that he be tried by theTokyo War Crimes Tribunal as a war criminal. C. Hirohito Emperor of Japan. His son,Crown Prince Akihito, took the popular step in 1959 of marrying a commonerShoda Michiko. . . the emperor, however supreme and inviolable in theory,was in practice dependent upon the support of one or the other of the greatfamilies."[7] Under the military dictatorship or bakufu established and maintainedby the feudal Tokugawa shoguns (16 3-1845), whose capital was in Edo(Tokyo), the emperor was relegated to largely ceremonial functions in theimperial capital of Kyoto where he was kept under close supervision. Their leading slogan was sonno, jo-i (honor theemperor, repel the barbarians!). The Age of Hirohito The Search for Modern Japan. Japan In Peace And War Selected Essays. All school childrenwere taught to bow in reverence and swear obedience daily to him. The monarchy helped during the transition, especially by Hirohito'snational tours of 1946-1949 where "he reached out to the public andemotionally aroused a people who had lost their spiritual mooring."[45]Although he was shorn of any real power, the media helped portray andtransform his image from "the prewar charismatic wielder of authority tohis softer image as a member of civil society" and indeed, a kindly elderlyexemplar of family values. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961.Dower, John W. [19] Irokawa, 75. New York: Random House, 199 .Butow, Robert J. Hirohito also was equivocal and lent the weight of his office to thepreparations for war with the West. [1 ] Leonard Mosley, Hirohito Emperor of Japan (Englewood Cliffs,Prentice-Hall, 1966), 15. Hirohito The War Years. Key Developments in the Institution (1868-1925). Post-Tokugawa Constitutional and Governing Structure (1868-1945) When Hirohito assumed the Imperial Throne on December 25,1926 at the age of 25 after the death of his father, the Emperor Taisho, heinherited a constitutional and governing structure which had beenestablished under the Meiji Restoration, but which both amplified andsharply limited the power of the emperor, increasingly so as Japan's rulingoligarchy sought to adapt to the turbulent forces which accompanied itsmodernization and rise to world power. [36] Hoyt, 287. [35] John W. Japan The Story of a Nation. 1912-1926), aconsiderably weakened throne, a failing economy and a crumbling politicalcenter. Theodore De Bary, and Donald Keene (Eds.). Hisdefenders such as Mosley defend him against responsibility for atrocitiessuch as the 1937 Rape of Nanking by claiming that "at the time he[Hirohito] did not know of them."[2 ] This image of the emperor as apassive puppet of the Japanese military does not quite square with thefacts, as the publication posthumously of his memoirs, Tenno Dokuhaku Roku,made clear. His former PrimeMinister Prince Fumimaro Konoye counselled the Emperor from early 1943onwards to make peace. B. [21] Irokawa, 78-8 . Butow, Tojo And The Coming of War (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1961), 24. Ryusaku Tsunoda, Wm. Hirohitoinherited from his inept father, the Emperor Taisho (r. The first law curtailing freedom of the media, the PeacePreservation Law, had been enacted in 1925. 1926-1989) in Japan during the period leading up to and duringthe Second World War, as compared his role and that of his successorAkihito thereafter. [43] LaFeber, 261-162. [37] Reischauer, 211. [13] Reischauer, 2 4. Hirohito's efforts were largelyunsuccessful as well because, as he said, no sooner did he help cause theappointment of a new and hopefully more moderate Prime Minister than thelatter would either be assassinated or veered in the direction of thecourse favored by the military. [46] Everett C. [26] Tsunoda et al., 28 . Hoyt said the great turning point for Hirohito was thedevastating B-29 air raids on Japan in early 1945. . Hirohito quoted a poem of the EmperorMeiji which contained the phrase: "Why, then, do the winds and waves ofstrife rage so turbulently throughout the world?"[29] He, however, didlittle else. [25] irokawa, 86. . The Making of Modern Japan. Hirohito was the victim of some very badadvice from some of his royal advisors, but Kawahara pointed out that by1935 or 1936, some of them, including Prince Saionji, were alarmed and toldhim "that there would have to be a radical redirection of governmentpolicy, at home and abroad."[24] The key to Hirohito's conduct during the 193 s was his concern forhis personal safety and for the survival of imperial prerogatives. [4] Daikichi Irokawa, The Age of Hirohito In Search of Modern Japan,trans. As early as February 1942, Hirohito suggested to the high commandthat Japan should give thought to making peace on the basis of its earlyrun of victories in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. New York: Knopf, 198 .Sansom, G. [17] Robert J. New York: Free Press, 1995.Kawahara, Toshiaki. According tolegends, first written down by the Yamato clan in the 7th century AD, thefirst emperor Jimmu (66 BC) was directly descended from the Sun GoddessAmaterasu Omikami. [38] Reischauer, 217. . Bowman. The heirs of the Great Sun haveoccupied the Imperial Throne from generation to generation without changefrom time immemorial."[2] According to Behr, Jimmu "was in all probabilitythe first in a series of tribal chiefs to leave their mark on one of theislands of the Japanese archipelago," and the legends of Jimmu and hissuccessors were appropriated by the later centralizing Yamatos to givetheir reign legitimacy.[3] Until the age of the first shoguns or pre-feudal military dictatorswhich began about 1192, the heads of the Imperial clans were known asemperors and were endowed with an aura of religious authority whichcentered around a primitive form of worship of nature, fertility andancestral deities known as Shinto. Sansom, Japan A Short Cultural History (New York:Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962), 74-75. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1996.Reischauer, Edwin O. Theodore De Bary,and Donald Keene (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 88. an individual is an existence belonging to the State.[26]Professor Minobe Tatsukichi of Tokyo University suggested that the emperorafter all was only an organ of the State. And in 1938 he personally exercised hisauthority as supreme commander to stop an invasion of the eastern provincesof the Soviet Union, on which the army high command was hellbent.[25]During the 193 s and World War II, the military-dominated government abusedthe institution of the emperor by portraying it as the fount of all virtue,the source of unquestioned obedience and total sacrifice for all Japaneseand the basis for Japanese superiority over other nations. Ryusaku Tsunoda, Wm. [42] Ibid., 281. Although Hirohito said privatelyhe agreed, he did nothing to prevent Minobe from being dismissed from hispost and his writings banned. [7] George B. [3] Edward Behr, Hirohito Behind The Myth (New York: Random House,199 ), 53. Reischauer said "the theory ofimperial rule without the reality had left an essentially headless system.It had never really been clear who was in charge-who would choose the primeminister or the other high officials around the emperor who acted in hisname."[13] This system worked well under the Emperor Meiji, himself an able man,who took a great interest in government and subtly used his influence onoccasion to resolve differences among his advisors and because of the highquality of the aristocratic political leadership under him during the firstthirty years of his rule. Public Opinion in America and Japan. His oneearly liberating experience was his state trip to Europe in 1921. [4 ] John W. Dower, Japan In War And Peace Selected Essays (New York:New Press, 1993, 343. Although he regarded Hirohito largely as a puppet of the militarists,MacArthur had few illusions about Hirohito's complicity in Japan's planningfor the Pacific War. Article 1 thereof said "the Emperorshall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People, derivinghis position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereignpower."[39] Decision not to prosecute the emperor as a war criminal and hisdecision not to abdicate. The Emperor Taisho failed to make much use of thepowers of the Throne largely because, according to Behr, he "was becoming,by fits and starts, increasingly eccentric, unstable and unfit torule."[14] Hirohito and The Coming of War (1926-1941) Crown Prince Hirohito was brought up and educated in the cloistered,cocoon-like atmosphere of the Imperial Court surrounded by teachers andadvisors who reinforced his naturally shy and none too imposing persona.The Hooblers said "Hirohito was not by nature a forceful personality. Vol. [23] Behr, 154. When a conclave of former prime ministers, the jushin,overwhelmingly told him they opposed war in November, he remained silent.His harshest critics, such as Manning, said "he plotted with his advisorsthe invasions of China and Manchuria and the attack on Pearl Harbor . [29] Ibid., 258. New York: Walker, 199 .Hoyt, Edwin P. II. To do so, they imported Western ideas,institutions and technology which they adapted to the Japanese traditionalway of life. Hirohito largely confined himself to questioning hisPrime Minister Hideki Tojo as to the reasons why the Japanese war effortwas faltering at critical points and finally engineered Tojo's fall frompower in July 1944. The dominant political issues during the first decade of Hirohito'sreign were trends in Japan toward authoritarianism, militarism andultranationalism. Until the late 192 s, a conservative coalition of the genro, thebureaucracy and business interests largely kept the ultranationalists incheck. Twenty five senior Japaneseleaders were so tried and seven were hung in 1948 as war criminals. Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan (Lexington, MA: Heath,1996), 12 . Allinson, Japan's Postwar History (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1997), 9. Yet Hirohito was spared, largelybecause of the efforts of General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commanderfor Allied Powers in Japan (SCAP). And Japan has made a remarkably smoothtransition to democracy. [28] ibid., 174. However, Japaneseemperors reigned more than they ruled, as others exercised power in theirname. [15] Hoobler et al., 56. According toMosley, "in place of the feudal chief, the men behind the throne gave thema national god, the emperor."[1 ] The Hooblers said that "Meiji's advisersused the emperor's religious role to promote the national unity they neededto carry out the modernization of Japan."[11] According to Reischauer, "thecentral concern of the oligarchs was to protect the emperor's prerogativesbecause these gave them their own authority and justification forrule."[12] Accordingly, the Constitution provided that the emperor was'sacred and inviolable,' and he was invested with all sovereign attributes,including the power to declare war, make peace and conclude treaties. Dower, Embracing Defeat Japan In The Wake Of World War II(New York: Norton, 1999), 282. Japan's stirring victories in the Sino-Japanese war of1893 and the Russo-Japanese war of 19 4-19 5 and Western and Chineseopposition to Japanese moves to improve its military and economic positionin Manchuria and China and anti-Japanese immigration restriction in theUnited States helped fuel the growth of ultranationalism and the formationof secret societies. His retainers with thehelp of the Navy then foiled a plot by diehards to block the surrender andbroadcast the surrender announcement himself on August 14 stating that itwas time "to bear the unbearable."[37] Reischauer called this "the firstimportant political decision a Japanese emperor had been called upon tomake since ancient times."[38] Changed Role of the Emperor in Postwar Democratic Japan The surrender of Japan and its occupation went remarkably smoothlythanks largely to the cooperation of all parties, including the Emperor,who on January 1, 1946 renounced all claims to his divine origins. New York: Appleton-Century- Croft, 1962.Seishisai, Aizawa. offering our lives for the sake of the emperor does not mean self-sacrifice, but the casting aside of our little selves to live under his august grace . [2] Aizawa Seishisai, "Preface to the New Proposals" (1825), in Sourcesof Japanese Tradition, Vol. New York: Norton, 1997.Manning, Paul. approved theirrecommendations for aggression and war."[3 ] Perhaps more accurate isIrokawa's assessment: "I believe that the emperor sided with his morecautious advisors but was swept along by the rapidly changing tide ofevents."[31] Mosley said "he loathed the idea of war with the United Statesand Britain. Dower, Embracing Defeat Japan In The Wake Of World War II(New York: Norton, 1999), 29 . [39] irokawa, 148. Someemperors actually ruled the land, such as the Emperor Tenchi (r. [5] Edwin O. When the shogun was deposed and replacedwith the 15 year old emperor Mitsushito in 1868, the fundamental aim of theoligarchs who surrounded the throne was to regain control over Japan'snational destiny which was threatened by the military and technologicalsuperiority of the West. Ladd and Karlyn H. BibliographyAllinson, Gary D. Translated by Mikiso Hane and John K. They arranged the death by bombing of the ChineseMarshall Zhang Zoulin in June 1928. Storrs, CT: AEI Press, 1996.LaFeber, Walter. [31] Irokawa, 87. [34] Irokawa, 89. . . [41] John W. He and his Lord Privy SealMarquis Kido maneuvered constantly during the spring and summer of 1945 toend the war, first by placing faith in the possibility of Soviet mediationand when that failed and after the United States dropped atomic bombs onHiroshima and Nagasaki, by making the necessary decision. For more than a millennium and long before American Commodore MatthewPerry's black warships entered Tokyo Bay in 1853-1854, the Imperial Throneserved as an important symbol of religious, cultural and political unity asa distinctive Japanese sense of identity emerged. After his father's death at the age of 87 on January 7,1989, the Emperor Akihito ascended to the throne ending the Showa era andushering in the Heisei era which thus far as been uneventful. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 199 .Ladd, Everett C., and Karlyn H. Theodore De Bary, and Donald Keene, 88-9 . New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986.Mosley, Leonard. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.