Tag: Japan

Two interesting history-making events took place in the kingdoms of Thailand and Japan last week. Thailand got a new king Vajiralongkorn with his coronation after the death of his father, King Bhumibol at the age of 88 two and a half years ago. The old king reigned for nearly 70 years as a divine king. The new 66-year-old king was a pilot and his new queen, who is his fourth wife, was courted and married from among the hostesses in his plane. The new king has travelled widely maintaining residence in Germany and by all standards he is a thoroughly modern king ruling over a medium power in Southeast Asia. Thailand is a country famous for its rice production and its tourism and hospitality business.  The world will be watching how this new king who is the most powerful king in the world almost wielding absolute power fares in a modern world of democracy and constitutionalism.

As an aside, Thailand used to be called “Siam”. When I entered Christ School, Ado Ekiti in 1956, one of the rites of passage was that we were told that the king of Siam was called “Whatanass” and we were taught to sing its “national anthem” with the music of British ”God Save the Queen “in the presence of the whole school.  We then as greenhorns sang “Oh Whatanass Siam” three times, repeating it many times while our seniors laughed at us before we were told what we were singing was “Oh what an ass I am”! This was a secret initiation we all kept to ourselves and not even revealing to our junior brothers since none of our own brothers told us about this prankish rite of passage. Nobody can joke about Thailand today because it is a reasonably prosperous and contented country whose divine king provides a rallying point in its fractious political environment.

On  a  more serious note, historically, the more important change of royal baton took place in Japan when Emperor Akihito after  being on the formidable Chrysanthemum imperial throne for 30 years abdicated and handed over to his son, Crown Prince Naruhito. Akihito saw the economic miracle of growth in Japan but his reign also witnessed several disasters, tsunamis, earthquakes and even an explosion of a nuclear reactor. He abdicated because of poor health and handed over to his well prepared and educated son, Naruhito whose highly educated wife and former diplomat, Masako had suffered some depression because of too much pressure as a result of being caged more or less in the palace because of imperial traditions. The abdication is significant because no Japanese emperor has abdicated in more than two centuries; certainly none after the Meiji restoration in the 19th century.

After the surrender of Japan to Allied forces in 1945 following the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Americans on the order of President Harry Truman which promptly incinerated close to half a million people and perhaps more by collateral damage, Emperor Hirohito, the 124th emperor of Japan  was to be tried for war crimes and deposed. The reason for possible trial of the emperor was that the armed forces of Japan fought and died for the emperor and it was considered a sacrilege for any Japanese soldier to surrender and rather than surrendering, it was considered honourable to commit hara-kiri. Wise counsel prevailed and the emperor was allowed to stay on the throne as a constitutional monarch. He had ascended the throne in 1926 and remained on the throne until 1989 when he died and was succeeded by his son, Akihito who has now abdicated.

The Japanese had fought with fury during the Second World War under their war time Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who, along his military generals were accused of holding the emperor hostage. The important thing is that Japanese people and soldiers were ready to pay any price and endure any hardship in the defence of their country and the Japanese throne. The Japanese before the outbreak of the war had carved out an area of China (Manchuria) and imposed colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula and during the war had occupied Taiwan and the Philippines and many other pacific islands. Even British rule in India was threatened by the militaristic state of Japan. Many war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Japanese including forcing women in occupied territories in China and Korea to provide sexual service for Japanese soldiers as “comfort women” for which Japan has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to surviving comfort women and their families. So strong was the animus against Japan in 1945 that the imperial throne was earmarked for abolition just as was done to the Emperor of Germany in 1919 after the First World War. Japan as a result of its defeat lost its prestige and Russia has refused up till today to hand over Japanese northern territories it occupied in 1945.  Russia against all pleas by Japan has refused to return Japanese northern territory to Japan perhaps because of the humiliation of defeat Russia suffered in the hands of Japan by Czarist Russia in 1905.

From the ashes and humiliation of defeat and without substantial natural resources but with the ingenuity of its people and commitment of the political leadership of the country, Japan for years became the second most powerful economic power in the world before being recently overtaken by the People’s Republic of China. If Japan wants to be a nuclear power, it has the resources and the knowhow. In fact, in recent times as a result of thereat from nuclear armed North Korea, its former colony, there is a strong movement within Japan and encouraged by President Trump that Japan should be able to defend itself against nuclear threats from North Korea and China. This is a departure from the pacific constitution imposed on Japan by America in 1945 limiting it to small armed forces with only defensive capabilities. This was before North Korea became a threatening nuclear power.

What happens in Japan has global significance because of the economic power of the country and its potential military power. Japan for now does not need to worry too much about nuclear attacks from potential enemies in Beijing and Pyongyang. This is because it enjoys protective nuclear umbrella of the United States which stations troops on Japanese mainland but particularly on the island of Okinawa where it maintains hundreds of thousands of American troops and on nearby American territory in Guam. But questions are being asked in Japan whether America would sacrifice the interest of Japan in trying to accommodate China and North Korea in the age of Trump where politics has become transactional. In this kind of scenario, the influence of the new emperor may become decisive. He is the 126th in a dynasty that has existed for more than 2000 years, certainly before the birth of Jesus Christ and it is the oldest dynasty in the world today. The mystical love and respect for this dynasty is deeply embedded in the Japanese psyche. There are millions of modern Japanese to whom the emperor remains a god that they are willing to fight and to die for. Below the superficial modernity of Japan is a deep conservative culture which gives the country its solidity which many marvel at because they cannot understand its culture. The new emperor is 59 and a very modern man and unlike his predecessors, he is widely travelled. After a first degree in History from a prestigious university in Japan, he spent three years for a post graduate degree in Oxford University in England. He speaks English and has a smattering knowledge of other languages while his wife, a former diplomat is said to speak English and French fluently. This modernity did not save the new queen Masako from the vitriol of criticism for not having a male child because the throne is reserved for only males. This has led to the nephew of the new emperor being declared the heir apparent to the throne. It seems some kind of Sallic law of royal succession which had been abolished in Europe for quite a while remains in Japan.

But it must be noted that until recently even in England, the male child takes precedence in order of succession to the throne. Recent attempt to change the law of succession in Japan was rebuffed by the aristocracy and the government. Kingship has its mystic and mystery and to remove these may seal the fate of the institution. This does not only apply to Japan but to all countries where the royal institutions continue to be revered, embraced, venerated and respected. When kings lose their aura and become ordinary people, the justification of the institution becomes tenuous and unsustainable.