Originally published on July 9, 2019.
This passage argues that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s diplomacy toward President Trump and the imperial diplomacy of the new Emperor and Empress functioned beautifully as the “two wheels” of Japanese diplomacy at the opening of the Reiwa era.
By examining Trump’s reception during his visit to Japan, the response of the Japanese public, the contrast with Britain, and the meaning of the Emperor’s authority in Japan, it vividly portrays the distinctive nature of Reiwa diplomacy.
It also touches on the path of Empress Masako and the major significance her presence holds for the future of imperial diplomacy.

2019-07-09
During the four days of Trump’s visit to Japan, Abe entertained him with gestures of hospitality such as golf, grand sumo, and robata grilling, while the Japanese people also warmly welcomed Trump, who was received by the new Emperor for the first time as a state guest.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The Two Wheels of Reiwa-Era Japanese Diplomacy
Kubo
Now then, when speaking of Reiwa-era Japanese diplomacy, not only should we note the brilliance of Abe’s diplomacy, which is drawing attention from countries around the world, but we should also pay attention to the imperial diplomacy in which Their Majesties the new Emperor and Empress received President Trump at the Imperial banquet as the first state guest of the Reiwa era.
Needless to say, imperial visits abroad and the reception of state guests are not acts of state as defined by Article 4 of the Constitution, but these two have been the twin wheels of Japan’s postwar diplomacy.
What is especially noteworthy about Reiwa diplomacy is that these two wheels played in splendid harmony.
During the four days of Trump’s visit to Japan, Abe entertained him with gestures of hospitality such as golf, grand sumo, and robata grilling, while the Japanese people also warmly welcomed Trump, who was received by the new Emperor for the first time as a state guest.
At the opening of the subsequent Japan-U.S. summit meeting, Trump expressed his gratitude, saying, “I am truly pleased to have been invited to such a great event as the enthronement.”
For Trump, those four days in Japan were probably the first “blissful time” he had experienced on a foreign visit.
On the other hand, after his visit to Japan, when Trump was likewise received as a state guest in Britain by Queen Elizabeth, the opposition Labour Party and civic groups staged protest demonstrations in London and treated him as an “unwelcome guest.”
Some fools offered the absurd explanation that this difference between the peoples of the two countries reflected a difference in political consciousness, but this was a difference in whether one values courtesy and decorum.
In other words, since the Japanese state, at the beginning of the Reiwa era, had invited Trump as a state guest and since the new Emperor was to receive him, the feeling among the people was that they should refrain from disgraceful words and actions and welcome him warmly.
I believe the existence of the Emperor was deeply involved in that.
For the first time, Trump may have come to understand deeply the meaning of Japan’s Emperor, who is revered by the people as an “authority” precisely because he exists in a place of “nothingness,” free from worldly power, “without action” and “without self.”
When considering Reiwa-era Japanese imperial diplomacy, indispensable is the presence of Empress Masako, who before her marriage was the daughter of Hisashi Owada, then Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, and an active, front-line diplomat.
Before her marriage, when Masako still felt lingering attachment to her work as a diplomat, the Crown Prince’s line of persuasion was, “Is not the work of a diplomat and that of an Empress the same?” (Mari Hayashi, Shukan Bunshun, January 21, 1993 issue).
However, once she became Crown Princess, she was pursued by days filled with imperial ceremonies and official duties, and as is well known, far from being able to combine that role with the kind of diplomatic work the Crown Prince had promised, her health suffered to the point that she could not even attend official events.
And yet, after Emperor Akihito’s abdication, when Empress Masako newly became Empress in place of Empress Michiko, she seemed to revive like a fish returned to water, and stood beside the new Emperor at the public greeting.
To be continued.