Published on August 8, 2019. This article continues a roundtable discussion from the monthly magazine Hanada featuring Sakurai Yoshiko, Kadota Ryusho, and Abiru Rui. It criticizes Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the new era name Reiwa, the Imperial Family, and the debate over female and matrilineal emperors, arguing that its stance reveals a political view of the Imperial institution.

2019-08-08
Most of the public received the new era name favorably, but Asahi was different… “When the selection process for the new era name ‘Reiwa’ is examined, a strong political color led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emerges.”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Launching an open criticism of the Imperial Family
Sakurai
The reporting from Heisei to Reiwa was terrible as well.
Most of the public received the new era name favorably, but Asahi was different.
The title of its article on the day the new era name was announced was “New Era Name, Strong Political Color.”
In it, Asahi wrote the following.
“When the selection process for the new era name ‘Reiwa’ is examined, a strong political color led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emerges.”
The era name was decided after experts submitted candidate names, knowledgeable persons selected from them, and approval was also obtained from the vice-presidents and speakers of both houses of the Diet and from each political party.
Why, then, is this criticized as “Prime Minister Abe’s political color”?
Abiru
The article writes that the prime minister instructed that era-name proposals be added and that a prior explanation was given to the Crown Prince, now His Majesty the Emperor, but a certain government official was furious.
“There is no way the Crown Prince would have leaked such a thing to Asahi. It is something only Prime Minister Abe and the Crown Prince could know, so what are they writing about as if they had seen it themselves!”
There may have been something like a situational report, but there is no possibility that the era-name proposals were shown to him in advance and his opinion was sought.
Nevertheless, after asserting that the Crown Prince’s opinion had been sought, Asahi criticized it in another article as follows.
“Katsutoshi Takami, professor emeritus at Sophia University in constitutional law, pointed out, ‘A prior explanation to the Crown Prince is a mistaken operation of the Era Name Act, which separated the establishment of era names from the Emperor.’ He further criticized it, saying, ‘Article 4 of the Constitution also prohibits the political side from using the authority of the Emperor. The prime minister’s act, conscious of a specific group of supporters of the administration, constitutes “political use of the new Emperor,” regardless of whether he sought the Crown Prince’s opinion, and there is suspicion of unconstitutionality.’”
It is an extremely cowardly method.
Kadota
Asahi is a newspaper that clings closely to China, so it disliked the fact that the era name was taken not from Chinese classics but from a Japanese national text.
Abiru
Asahi sneers that if one traces the poem on which Reiwa was based, it goes back to Chinese classics, and therefore it cannot be said in a pure sense to have been adopted from a Japanese national text, but if one says such things, seventy percent of the Chinese characters used in China today are made in Japan.
Even the “republic” in “People’s Republic of China” was originally a word created by Japan.
I want to say that if they have time to pick quarrels over such things, they should do more ordinary reporting.
Kadota
At the time of the Imperial succession, Asahi finally launched clear criticism of the Imperial Family in Tensei Jingo.
Quoting Ango Sakaguchi’s phrase “historical great deception,” it bitterly criticized the attitude of the people who are grateful for and rely upon authority derived from hereditary succession.
Recently, why has Asahi been so desperately calling for the realization of female and matrilineal emperors?
The answer lies here.
In one phrase, it is “the overthrow of the Emperor system.”
Sakurai
The Japanese Communist Party, too, when one reads its platform and other documents, is a party that advocates the overthrow of the Emperor system.
Now it is putting forward the argument that female and matrilineal emperors should be accepted.
Asahi and the Communist Party are marching perfectly in step.
In Asahi’s article “Issues for Reiwa: Part Two—Female and Matrilineal Emperors, a Debate That Faded Away” dated April 23, it argues that, in order to ensure stable Imperial succession, direct descendants of the Emperor should be given priority while recognizing female and matrilineal emperors, and it writes the following about the proposal to restore to Imperial status the former Imperial branch families that left the Imperial registry after the war.
“In an Asahi Shimbun public opinion survey in 2017, 67% opposed the return of former Imperial family members to the Imperial Family, greatly exceeding the 20% who supported it. The parties concerned are also negative. Kuni Kuniaki, head of the Kuni family, wrote in his own book that, regarding the opinion that they should be returned to Imperial status, ‘To be honest, my real feeling is, “Why now?”’
Nonfiction writer Hoshaka Masayasu, who interviewed them around 2005, says, ‘At the time, I could hardly confirm any former Imperial family members or their male-line male descendants who wanted to return to Imperial status. They seem to have the perspective of ordinary people living ordinary lives, and because of their relationship with society, they do not feel inclined to return to the Imperial Family.’”
A second Jinshin War will occur
Kadota
Asahi and the Communist Party are trying to realize female and matrilineal emperors even if that means revising the Imperial House Law.
That is also, in other words, “the theory of disinheriting Prince Hisahito.”
It is a terrifying thing.
They are trying to “disinherit” the legitimate male-line successor of the Imperial Family.
What would happen if female and matrilineal emperors were accepted?
The constitutional scholar Okudaira Yasuhiro, now deceased, who was a theoretical pillar of the liberal forces, once wrote the following in Sekai under the title “‘The Emperor’s Heir’ Problem and What It Contains—On the Theories of ‘Unbroken Imperial Line’ and ‘Female Emperor.’”
“It contains within itself a factor that erodes the ‘unbroken Imperial line’ ideology, which is the very basis of legitimacy for the Emperor system. … Measures that accept a system outside the ‘unbroken Imperial line’ cannot possess any ‘traditional’ basis whatsoever.”
In other words, if a matrilineal emperor is realized, the unbroken Imperial line will be severed, and the Imperial Family will collapse from within.
Abiru
Mr. Okudaira was a caller of the Article 9 Association, close to the Japanese Communist Party.
There are several anti-Imperial constitutional scholars, not only Mr. Okudaira, who argue similar things.
Sakurai
In “Female and Matrilineal Emperors, a Debate That Faded Away,” after stating that stable male-line male Imperial succession is extremely difficult in the modern age without the concubine system, Asahi writes the following.
“The advisory council concluded that, regarding the order of Imperial succession, direct descendants of the Emperor should be given priority, and among the Emperor’s children, brothers and sisters, ‘priority to the first child, the eldest child,’ in age order without distinction between men and women, is ‘appropriate.’
If this is applied to the Imperial Family after the present succession, the first in line to the throne would be Princess Aiko, second would be Prince Akishino, third would be Princess Mako, fourth would be Princess Kako, and fifth would be Prince Hisahito.
In a public opinion survey conducted by Asahi Shimbun this year, 76% responded that a female emperor may be recognized, and 74% responded that a matrilineal emperor may be recognized.”
Abiru
The current order of Imperial succession is first Prince Akishino and second Prince Hisahito.
If a rule were introduced that would make Princess Aiko first in the order of succession, it would be nothing other than usurpation of the Imperial throne by a third party.
I find it astonishing that they can calmly write an article about such a terrifying thing, effectively depriving the successors to the throne of their qualifications.
If such a thing is asserted, then if Princess Aiko were to have a child, it could lead to a “contest over legitimacy.”
Which would have legitimacy, Prince Hisahito or Princess Aiko’s child?
Even if the persons themselves have no intention of fighting, those around them might fight, and something close to the Jinshin War could occur, when after the death of Emperor Tenji, in the first year of Emperor Tenmu, 672, Imperial family members and powerful clans divided into two factions and fought over Imperial succession.
Sakurai
The Jinshin War was a major event at the time.
One cannot help suspecting that Asahi may be plotting to cause something similar in the twenty-first century, destabilize Japan, undermine its foundations, and turn it into a republic.
Abiru
There is a veteran reporter named Iwai Katsumi who served for many years as Asahi’s Imperial Household correspondent.
During the Koizumi administration, at the time of the advisory council on the Imperial House Law, I often debated with him, and what is interesting is that, despite being with Asahi, he is a supporter of the male line.
He lamented that even when he talked about the male line within the company, his superiors did not understand at all.
This article continues.