Hirohito

Hirohito or the Showa Emperor, (1901-1989) was the 124th emperor of Japan, 1926-89. He was the symbolic leader of his nation through prosperity (1926-29), depression (1929-41), victory and defeat in World War II (1941-45), the American Occupation (1945-50), and the rapid recovery of Japan to become an economic superpower (1950-86).

Early Life

Hirohito was born at Aoyama Palace, Tokyo, April 29, 1901, son of Emperor Yoshihito, the Taisho Emperor. He was raised by Count and Countess Kawamura, in accordance with the Japanese custom that imperial princes should be reared in a normal household unaffected by the elaborate ceremonial of the royal palace. The Kawamuras also were given charge of Prince Chichibu, Hirohito's younger brother and Kawamura treated them as he would his own grandchildren, subjecting them to a careful discipline. When Hirohito was five years old he and Chichibu were returned to the palace, where a kindergarten was arranged. At the age of eight Hirohito was sent to the Peers' School, where emphasis was placed on discipline, frugality, and diligence. There he was initiated into military training. He also proved an excellent pupil, showing a strong early interest in marine biology, as well as geography and history.

Upon the death in 1912 of his grandfather, Emperor Mutsuhito, Hirohito became heir-apparent to the throne and was commissioned a second lieutenant in both the army and navy. After his graduation in 1914 from the Peers' School, the Crown Prince's Institute was opened for his higher education, which required seven years; five sons of peers were his classmates. Upon his graduation in 1921 he became the first imperial prince ever to tour Europe, March to September 1921, to see how constitutional monarchy worked in Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. The public discovered Hirohito had surprisingly democratic qualities, an eager intelligence, and a shy, quiet manner (the last partly ascribed to his self-consciousness and myopic eyesight). The crown prince returned from his tour to find his father failing rapidly in health, and in November 1921 Hirohito was entrusted with the affairs of government as prince regent. On Jan. 26, 1924, he married Princess Nagako Kuni.

Emperor

On the death of Yoshihito, Dec. 25, 1926, he became emperor; he was formally enthroned in November 1928. Upon becoming emperor he adopted the reign name of Showa, meaning "Radiant Peace," an increasingly ironic term as the increasing military dominations of Japan's government led the country into war, first with China and then with the Western powers.

Hirohito's removal of support for Tanaka Giichi's cabinet was instrumental in its downfall. His forthright opposition to the coup attempted by army officers in the 26 February Incident in 1936 did much to facilitate its suppression. In general his role was more symbolic than powerful, but everything was done in his name and he formally signed off his approvals.

World War II

The emperor, in general, opposed going to war with the United States in 1941, not out of pacifist tendencies but because he was so concerned about a probable Japanese defeat. Yet because his power was so circumscribed by the structure of the imperial government, he eventually became fatalistic about going to war. He continued to oppose going to war until the last minute, but pressure from his military bureaucracy forced his hand.

He played an increasingly important role in the war, visiting devastated cities to maintain civlian and military morale. His main adviser was Kido Koichi (1889-1977), who as the "lord keeper" was effectively the information manager who controlled the information flow between the emperor and other officials, thereby assisting in staging the Tojo cabinet's dissolution and convincing the emperor to consider ending Japan's war involvement. Hirohito denied the war was lost until after the defeat at the Battle of Okinawa in June 1945; then he delayed surrender until his own status was assured by the United States. In early August, the two atomic bombs, coupled with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Korea war meant his position was hopeless and he seized on ambiguous American reassurances and surrendered all Japanese forces.

Occupation and new status

The State Department in Washington, not General Douglas MacArthur made the decision to retain Hirohito and the imperial institution; the decision evolved by 1944 out of a wartime assumption that the emperor was not personally guilty but was essential for American plans for postwar Japan. Rather than a flash of inspiration from the supreme commander, American policy toward the emperor represented a confluence of motivations that crystallized in the early days of the occupation. MacArthur agrfeed with the policy and orchestrated dramatic public displays, as well as real changes, that made it clear a new era had arrived and that militarism and emperor worship had ended.

On Jan. 1, 1946, just ten years after his imperial title had been changed to Dai Nippon Teikoku Tenno, meaning "Imperial Son of Heaven in Mighty Japan," Hirohito disclaimed his divinity in a statement to his people. Thereafter Hirohito and the imperial family drew closer to their people. In 1958 this change in attitude was reflected in the choice of a commoner, Michiko Shoda, as a bride for Crown Prince Akihito. This broke a 1,500-year tradition requiring future empresses to be from noble families. In 1962 Hirohito published the first of several books on marine biology, a subject in which he did considerable research. In 1971 Hirohito visited Europe, the first visit abroad by a reigning Japanese emperor. In 1975 Hirohito paid an official state visit to the United States. After a long illness, Hirohito died at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Jan. 7, 1989.

Image and memory

Following longstanding tradition, on his death everyone in Japan immediately stopped using the name Hirohito and referred to him as the Showa Emperor, and his reign as the Showa Period. Outside Japan, he is still usually known as Hirohito.

Hirohito was violently hated and loathed outside Japan during the war, and was often depicted as a subhuman monster and head of an evil empire. Brands (2006) examines the shift in American public opinion regarding him after the surrender. In June 1945 three out of four Americans wanted him tried as a war criminal; only 7% thought he should be allowed to stay in power. The media attacked anyone thought to be mildly disposed to Hirohito. MacArthur, however, found Hirohito's compliance with the occupation valuable in bringing democratic government to Japan. Hirohito became "humanized" in the American media; stories about his family began to appear, he was photographed in Western dress, and he renounced imperial divinity. News stories out of occupied Japan were censored or slanted to stress reconciliation rather than vengeance, and by June 1946 Americans were accepting the story of Hirohito as a pawn of Japan's military leaders and at the same time were coming to see the Japanese people as willing to accept American political and cultural influences.

Inside Japan following his death discussions of the emperor's image and his role as a symbol of his times focused largely on the issue of his responsibility for World War II according to Finnish historian Olavi K. Fält. One side of his dual image, that of a constitutional monarch, represented the favorable, democratic connotations that had arisen since the war, while the view that he had been responsible for Japan's involvement in the war represented the postwar critical image that he had acquired. The interpretation of these images and of his symbolic significance is complicated still further by the question of what was meant by "responsibility". The Japan Times explained how the foreign media interpreted this predominantly in legal and constitutional terms, while for many Japanese it was mostly an emotional matter that was quite separate from anything that he as a person might actually have done. It was a question of symbolic authority such as is vested in the head of a family, a company, or a nation. The dichotomous nature of the Showa emperor's image, as possibly responsible for the course of events that led Japan into the war and at the same time as a symbol of unity, representing peace and democracy, would seem - in the light of the articles in the press - to have been understood as synonymous with the spirit of the times. In this sense he was a symbol of his age: whatever the symbol of the emperor was, the same could be said of the times in which he reigned. Although there was much discussion of his responsibility for the war, one might still ask whether this was really the most serious problem in practice. Was it not more important to resolve the issue of his responsibility as the head of the nation? As the emperor was felt to be a symbol of his age, should he not have automatically borne responsibility for the war in the eyes of the majority of Japanese people, or even served in an essential sense as the symbol of the whole nation's guilt with respect to the war?

Bibliography

• Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito And The Making Of Modern Japan (2000), 816pp, the standard scholarly biography excerpt and text search
• Brands, Hal. "The Emperor's New Clothes: American Views of Hirohito after World War II". Historian 2006 68(1): 1-28. Issn: 0018-2370 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Brinckmann, Hans, and Ysbrand Rogge. Showa Japan: The Post-War Golden Age and Its Troubled Legacy (2008)
• Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (1999), major scholarly study excerpt and text search
• Gluck, Carol, and Stephen R. Graubard, eds. Showa: The Japan of Hirohito. (1992) articles by scholars excerpt and text search
• Harvey, Robert. American Shogun: General MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito, and the Drama of Modern Japan. (2006). 480 pp. popular history
• Kawamura, Noriko. "Emperor Hirohito and Japan's Decision to Go to War with the United States: Reexamined." Diplomatic History 2007 31(1): 51-79. Issn: 0145-2096 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Large, Stephen S. Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography (1997)
• Ruoff, Kenneth J. The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995. (2001). 331 pp.

Historiography

• Harootunian, Harry. "Hirohito Redux." Critical Asian Studies 2001 33(4): 609-636. Issn: 1467-2715 Fulltext: Ebsco, focused on Bix (2000)

See also

• Japan, history