Quartz: Too rich, too comfortable: Why Japan is so resistant to change even as disaster looms

Under the leadership of Shinzo Abe, it can feel as if Japan is enjoying a revolution of sorts. Sweeping economic reforms are finally shaking up its long-stagnant economy, while more foreign workers are entering the country than ever before. Soaring tourist numbers and major sporting events, like this year’s Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Summer Olympics, are also keeping “Cool Japan,” well, cool.[...]

But none of these advantages will help the country tackle its serious economic and demographic problems. That’s according to Brad Glosserman, a 12-year resident of Japan and author of a new book, Peak Japan: The End of Great Ambitions (Georgetown University Press, 2019). Glosserman, now deputy director of the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University in Tokyo, decided to write the book after the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in 2011. He wondered whether those calamities would be enough to shake Japan out of its comfortable, familiar stupor. His conclusion? Not so much.[...]

The nature of the challenges facing Japan, and the need to reverse those trends that everybody acknowledges are bad, requires structural shifts. And the Japanese are not prepared to do that. “We like what we have, we’re a small ‘c’ conservative country, we are not prepared to adopt a system that somebody else thinks we need when we’re not sure of it ourselves,” they say. Japan is not like a society trapped in the amber—of course it’s changing and evolving, but these are evolutionary, not revolutionary changes. What the Japanese are is very Japanese. This is a country that believes in law, resilience, stoicism, sucking it up and getting through it. That, as one politician put it to me, is an absolute brake on change in this country. [...]

For those on the right who seek reforms to realize their dream of a more powerful and influential Japan, they must balance their impact on social norms and idealized social structures. With women, the tension here is between what the government knows it has to do to unleash their economic potential in society, but there’s also the notion of a woman’s place in the household—I think Abe really does believe in that. There’s been all sorts of policy nudges that the government could have done, but they haven’t, like making childcare widely available. That tension has resulted in begrudging changes that are too late. [...]

People will look back at the emperor and think that he was an extraordinary man in so many ways. He was a voice of reason, a voice of calm and serenity. He encapsulated the very best of Japan. There’s even speculation that he actually decided to abdicate as one way of stopping the prime minister from getting his constitutional revision to Article 9.

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FRANCE 24 English: The return of Japan's imperialists (Mar 1, 2017)

Nippon Kaigi, or the so-called Japan Conference, is the country's most influential conservative lobby. Its members deny Japanese wartime atrocities and want to create a new nation centered on the Imperial family. Now they oppose plans to allow Emperor Akihito to abdicate, possibly in early 2018.

A programme prepared by Patrick Lovett and Elise Duffau.

Slate: Kate Middleton and Japan’s Princess Mako Showcase Two Different Gendered Models of Royal Succession

But of the 19 people in the Japanese royal family, just five are men, including 83-year-old Emperor Akihito, who plans to abdicate his position next year. He’ll pass the throne to his eldest son, Crown Prince Naruhito. Naruhito has no sons, so he’ll pass it to his younger brother Akishino. Akishino’s only son and Akihito’s only male grandchild, 10-year-old Hisahito, is next in line. If he doesn’t have any sons, there will be no one left to take his place.

The fast-approaching end of Akihito’s reign isn’t the only cause for concern among those invested in the future of Japanese monarchy. On Sunday morning, Princess Mako, Akihito’s oldest grandchild and Akishino’s oldest child, announced her engagement to a commoner. Japanese law dictates that male royals can marry outside the imperial family and retain their status, but women cannot. When 25-year-old Mako marries legal assistant Kei Komuro, her college boyfriend, she’ll finally get the right to vote but forfeit her allowance from the government, her title, and her last name.

A large majority of Japanese residents—86 percent, according to a May 2017 poll—believe that women should be eligible for the throne, and 59 percent think the children of female family members should also count in the line of succession. Sixty-one percent want princesses to be able to stay in the imperial family after their marriages to commoners, helping to expand the family tree as those couples grew their own branches of descendants. Now, Japanese legislators must decide which is more important: the continued existence of a dwindling imperial bloodline or its strict patrilineal heritage. [...]

By some accounts, even Emperor Akihito supports such a change. Empresses are not unheard of in Japan: Though emperors used to have concubines to increase the likelihood of producing male heirs, eight women in the family have sat on the throne in the 125 recorded generations of the imperial family. They were largely considered stand-ins until patrilineal successors could take over. There are few good arguments beside tradition for the endurance of government-supported monarchs, and even fewer for the restriction of the throne to men. Mako could just as easily perform the duties of an empress, minimal as they are, as her grandfather, and imperial genes will persist in her future children as much as they will in her brother’s. There’s another word for a tradition that would rather reintegrate families who have been commoners for generations into the imperial line than treat women as equally valued members: sexism.

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The Atlantic: Japan's Lower Parliament Passes Law Allowing Its Emperor to Abdicate

Amid fears that permanently allowing emperors to abdicate could subject monarchs to political manipulation, the new bill is set to expire in three years, and cannot be applied to any subsequent emperor. Legislators were open to the special provision due to Akihito’s age and declining health. The emperor, who is now 83 years old, underwent heart bypass surgery in 2012 and previously received treatment for prostate cancer, including a surgery in 2003. The surgery marked the first time a Japanese emperor was operated on outside of palace grounds, once more signaling the progressive direction of Akihito’s monarchy. As Japan’s ruler during World War II, Akihito’s father, Emperor Shōwa, was accused of carrying out horrific war crimes. As a result, Akihito’s nearly 30-year reign has been characterized by making amends for past suffering inflicted by Japan.  

In many ways, the current Japanese monarchy has been one of firsts. Akihito is the first member of the Japanese imperial family to marry someone without royal heritage. He met his wife, Michiko Shōda, on a tennis court in 1957. Akihito is also the first emperor of Japan who was never considered divine. Japanese legend claims the nation’s imperial house—the oldest continuous monarchy in the world—is descended from the sun goddess, Amaterasu. Akihito’s father was the first monarch to renounce the concept of a divine emperor. [...]

As it stands, women who marry must leave the imperial family. Imperial Household Law also stipulates that women cannot become monarchs. Discourse among legislators and academics surrounding the royal status of women has carried on for years. According to a recent Kyodo News survey, 86 percent of Japanese citizens would support a female empress, while 62 percent would support allowing female members of the imperial family to remain royal after marriage. Another 68 percent said they supported revising the Imperial House Law to allow any future emperor to abdicate the throne

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