Japanese Succession Controversy - Timeline of Recent Events

Timeline of Recent Events

• On January 24, 2005, the Japanese government announced that it would consider allowing the Crown Prince and Princess to adopt a male child, in order to avoid a possible "heir crisis." Adoption from other male-line branches of the Imperial Line is an age-old imperial Japanese tradition for dynastic purposes, prohibited only in modern times by Western influence. The child would presumably be adopted from one of the former imperial branches which lost imperial status after World War II. However, a government-appointed panel of experts submitted a report on October 25, 2005, recommending that the imperial succession law be amended to permit equal primogeniture.

• In November 2005, it was reported that Emperor Akihito's cousin Prince Tomohito of Mikasa had objected to the reversal of the male-only succession, in a column of the magazine of the welfare association which he serves as president. Prince Tomohito had suggested four options to continue the male-only line succession there; the fourth was permitting the Emperor or Crown Prince to take a concubine, which was allowed by the former law of imperial succession.

• On January 20, 2006, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi used part of his annual keynote speech to address the controversy when he pledged to submit a bill to the Japanese Diet letting women ascend to the throne so that imperial succession may be continued into the future in a stable manner. Koizumi did not announce any particular timing for the legislation to be introduced, nor did he provide details about its content, but said that it would be in line with the conclusions of the 2005 government panel.

• On February 1, 2006, former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma caused a controversy by arguing against the proposed reform bill because Princess Aiko might marry a foreigner in the future.

• On February 6, 2006, it was announced that Prince Akishino's wife Princess Kiko was pregnant, and would be due in September. On September 6, 2006, Princess Kiko delivered a baby boy, later named Prince Hisahito. According to the current succession law he is third in line to the throne, but Princess Aiko, who now holds no right to succession, would have precedence over him as well as over her uncle if the law is changed.

• On January 3, 2007, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he would drop the proposal to alter the Imperial Household Law.

• In September 2007, Abe's successor Yasuo Fukuda stated he was in favour of reforming the Imperial Household Law to allow female succession.

• In November 2009, in a speech commemorating his 20th anniversary since ascending the Chrysanthemum Throne, Emperor Akihito refrained from giving his own suggestions on the succession debate, but urged the government to consider the opinions of his sons Crown Prince Naruhito and Prince Akishino.

• On October 5, 2011, Shingo Haketa, Grand Steward of the Imperial Household Agency, visited Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at his office and told him that it was a matter of urgency to enable female members of the imperial family to create family branches. According to the Grand Steward, the imperial family cannot maintain its activities in a stable manner. Presently, 12 imperial family members are adults under the age of 60 and half of these are unmarried princesses between the ages of 20 and 30. If several of these princesses should leave the family through marriage in the near future, it would become more and more difficult for the imperial family to perform its duties. Considering that Prince Hisahito is at present the only grandson of Emperor Akihito eligible to assume the throne, the agency also said that it would be necessary to design a system to ensure stable succession to the imperial throne, although this would be a mid- to long-term concern. Grand Steward Haketa has reportedly been worried about the succession issue ever since he has taken the top post at the agency in 2005. After the Democratic Party of Japan won the election in September 2009, he explained the situation to Cabinet members, urging the government to address the issue. The government has been slow to act upon his request.

• On November 25, 2011, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said that a way had to be found to secure a "stable" accession to the Chrysanthemum Throne, expressing concern over the small number of successors to the crown. "The government is aware that future anxiety over securing a stable succession has not been resolved," Fujimura said. "Maintaining a steady succession is an issue that relates to the core of the nation and the government will consider it based on thorough discussions from various levels of the public." The next day, former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma, now a founding member of Sunrise Party of Japan, contended during a meeting with conservative organizations that the male line of imperial heirs should be maintained. Hiranuma suggested that if female members were allowed to remain in the family after marrying a commoner, they should try and marry a member of the 11 branches of the imperial family that were disenfranchised in October 1947. Hiranuma also proposed to reinstate the former branches to boost the Imperial family's size.

• On December 1, 2011, Prime Minister Noda called for a national debate on whether women should be allowed to retain their imperial status. He did not set any deadlines but declared his intention to build a framework to discuss the issue. Two days later, some government officials told Kyodo News that the issue of the female members' status "does not appear to be a pressing task. The government has no energy left to spare for that." According to Kyodo, a source close to the imperial family expressed concern because of the government´s hesitant attitude. "It's obvious that the imperial family's range of activities will become narrower in the future without reforming the current system. A new system needs to be created before Princess Mako gets married. I'd like to see the public take more interest in the matter," said the source.

• On January 6, 2012, Chief Cabinet Secretary Fujimura told a press conference that the government recognized "that maintaining the stability of the activities of the Imperial Household and lessening the burden of official duties placed on Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress are major issues of a high degree of urgency." He announced that they would focus on discussing the status of female members and the possibility for them to create new family branches but that there would be no debate about giving succession rights to them or to their children. He announced that "in order to contribute to the discussion," expert hearings would take place once or twice every month. Former Supreme Court Justice and lawyer Itsuo Sonobe was appointed to the position of Special Advisor to the Cabinet to lead the hearings, "as he is highly knowledgeable about the Imperial Household system" and formerly served as deputy chairman of the Advisory Council on the Imperial House Law that recommended in 2005 that the right to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne should be expanded to women and imperial family offspring of female lineage.

• On January 7 and 8, 2012, a Kyodo News poll showed that 65.5% of the Japanese people support the idea of allowing female members of the imperial family to create their own branches of the family and to retain their imperial status after marriage. The telephone survey drew valid responses from 1,016 eligible voters in 1,459 households randomly dialed across Japan, apart from parts of Fukushima Prefecture evacuated by the nuclear crisis.

• On February 10, 2012, a Japan Times editorial accused Fujimura of "beating around the bush" by solely talking about the importance of maintaining "the activities of the Imperial Family in a stable manner" and of lightening "the burden of the Emperor and Empress' official duties." It voiced concerns that "if male members of the Imperial Family become very few, it will become difficult to keep the Imperial line" and that "given the current situation of the Imperial Family, making a woman Imperial Family member serve as an emperor may become unavoidable," blaming the government for "shying away from discussing a possible situation in which there will be no males to succeed to the throne." Colin Jones, a law professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, warned that, without changes, there would not be a backup plan if Prince Hisahito should fail to have a son or be incapacitated in some way. "Monarchies have extended families just so that there’s a source of spares," Professor Jones said. "Over time there will be no other members of the imperial family to act as proxies." According to Jones, it is necessary to also address the succession issue as soon as possible, since it may be too late to do so by the time Hisahito becomes emperor. "They can’t just suddenly conjure up new imperials," he said. "They’ve got to do something now."

• On February 29, 2012, the first hearing took place. On this occasion Dr. Akira Imatani, Professor of medieval Japanese history at Teikyo University, and Mr. Soichiro Tawara, a journalist, gave their opinions. Both recommended that female members of the imperial family should retain their status after marriage. "Times have changed and Japan has become a society that promotes gender equality. I think refusing to allow females to maintain their status is an anachronism," Tahara told the government panel. Tahara and Imatani proposed that commoner husbands of imperial princesses be granted quasi-imperial status, which would permit them to attend official events while keeping their jobs, if even with some restrictions.

• On March 29, 2012, the second hearing took place. Dr. Masayuki Yamauchi, professor of international affairs at the Graduate School of The University of Tokyo, and Dr. Makoto Oishi, professor of constitutional law at the Graduate School of Kyoto University, also expressed their endorsement of princesses establishing their own branches. Yamauchi proposed, in order to reduce the burden on the public budget, to limit the eligibility to princesses within the second degree of kinship to the emperor. (Currently that group includes the three granddaughters of Emperor Akihito, Princesses Aiko, Mako and Kako.) According to Yamauchi, at some point in the future the imperial family may consist of a single nuclear family, that of Prince Hisahito, and support by female-headed family branches might prove helpful in avoiding such isolation.

• On April 10, 2012, the third hearing took place. The experts at this hearing were Ms.Yoshiko Sakurai and Professor Akira Momochi, and these two were the first to clearly oppose the idea of letting imperial women retain their royal status upon marriage. Professor Momochi teaches law at Nihon University, Japan´s largest university. Ms. Sakurai is a well-known journalist and social critic in Japan, especially famous for her right-wing and sometimes ultra-nationalistic stance. Although there are no plans to give the princesses succession rights, Ms. Sakurai and Professor Momochi still have concerns that female-headed imperial family branches could eventually break the paternal lineage. As a solution to the decrease of imperial family members and the lack of eligible male heirs, they suggested revising the Imperial Household Law so that male descendants of former imperial families which renounced their royal status in 1947 be allowed to return to the imperial family as adoptees. Ms. Sakurai also proposed reinstating four of the former imperial branches. "There were too many, so they were cut back. Now we’re in the complete opposite position, why can’t we take the opposite measure?" she asked. (The background to this statement is that up until the Meiji Restoration there were only four collateral branches of the imperial family, the shinnōke. In the 19th century, more houses were created from branches of the Fushimi-no-miya house, the ōke. By 1935, there were 11 collateral branches of the imperial family altogether, in addition to the families of Emperor Showa’s three brothers.) According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, the government is against the idea of reinstating the former collateral branches, "saying it will be difficult to obtain public support as the descendants were born as commoners."

• On April 23, 2012, the fourth hearing took place. The experts at this hearing also backed the establishment of female branches of the imperial family. As the government plans to hear the views of "just under 20 experts," it is assumed that the hearings are halfway finished.

• On May 4, 2012, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the government plans to consult the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and major opposition parties on a draft for the revision of the Imperial Household Law before submitting a bill to an extraordinary Diet session in autumn or to an ordinary sitting of the legislature next year. Looking back at the hearings, one government official said, "A wider than expected range of views have been expressed," talking about the proposal to expand the number of imperial family members by allowing men of the former princely houses to return to the imperial family as adoptees. Another idea that raised attention was allowing female imperial family members to retain the title of "princess" even after leaving the imperial family by marriage, so they could still take part in the royal family's activities despite losing the formal imperial family member status. As this idea has been supported by proponents and opponents of the creation of female-headed family branches, officials said that it could be a compromise if the discussion "remains inconclusive." As there are still controversial viewpoints concerning the possibility of allowing princesses to keep their royal status after marriage, "the leadership of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will be crucial to government reform of the system," government officials told the Yomiuri Shimbun. However, although Prime Minister Noda once underlined the urgency of the matter, he has not made any public remarks on this issue for many months. This has led to skepticism among some government officials about whether the issue is a major priority for him. A senior official of the Imperial Household Agency voiced his concern, telling the Yomiuri Shimbun, "When considering the near future, the system needs to change." According to the Imperial Household Law, the Empress as well as princesses are temporarily allowed to act on behalf of the emperor in state matters. That means that if female members of the imperial family were allowed to keep their royal status after marriage, they would be able to considerably alleviate the burden of the few male royals by taking over some of their duties.