Pro-government newspaper in Japan shocks with ‘radical' support for female emperor

Straits Times

2 days ago

(From left) Japan's Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and other royal family members attending the spring garden party at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo on April 22. PHOTO: AFP
– The two main conservative media outlets in Japan are waging a battle for public opinion, after the Yomiuri newspaper broached an idea long held to be taboo and one that breaks from right-wing values.
'We should not rule out the possibility of a female emperor, or an emperor through a female line,' the Yomiuri newspaper declared in its Page One story on May 15, as it unveiled policy proposals on the question of imperial succession.
'If we continue to insist on male descendants in the male line, the survival of the symbolic emperor system will be in jeopardy.'
That the influential Yomiuri Shimbun – Japan's largest broadsheet with a daily circulation of 6.2 million copies – was giving policy recommendations is not surprising. Since 1994, it has leveraged its position as the nation's most-read newspaper to drive policy agenda through its proposals.
However, what has rippled through Japan's political hallways was how the Yomiuri, often considered to be pro-government for its alignment with the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has embraced a stance that is more in line with the political left.
The hawkish Sankei newspaper, with a circulation of under one million, launched a broadside, enlisting commentators who accused the Yomiuri of 'misleading the public' with 'sloppy content'.
Its chief editorial writer Satoshi Sakakibara said the Yomiuri was bordering on blasphemy and would lead to 'Japan ceasing to be Japanese'.
A Sankei editorial noted that legacy newspapers should not jump on the popular bandwagon and engage in 'knee-jerk politics, by rushing to conclusions based on superficial information without considering the weight of history or responsibility to the future'.
The culture war comes as the future of Japan's monarchy – the world's oldest hereditary royal lineage dating to 660BC – is now a hot-button issue in Japan's Parliament, due to the dwindling number of political heirs.
Public opinion, however, is firmly in support of a female monarch or an emperor of matrilineal descent. This clashes with conservative hardliners within the LDP, who want to preserve the Chrysanthemum Throne exclusively for male descendants of the male line.
This is nothing to do with a gender divide: among the staunchest flag-bearers for hardline policy is former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, a prime ministerial hopeful who has of late sharpened her criticism of incumbent leader Shigeru Ishiba.
Mr Kiyotaka Akasaka, president of the non-profit Nippon Communications Foundation, told The Straits Times that the Yomiuri's proposals are 'radical' given the newspaper's usual position, and come as a 'bombshell to the political right'.
The policy ideas might not have been possible if veteran journalist Tsuneo Watanabe, who was Yomiuri's managing editor from 1985 until his death at 98 in 2024, was still alive, Mr Akasaka said.
The clash in views, he added, stems from the hardliners' unwavering commitment to traditional values regardless of circumstance and despite the alarming decline of imperial family members.
But he noted: 'It is very difficult to foresee how greatly these proposals will impact the current policy considerations, but they have very much encouraged the political opposition.'
Emperor Naruhito, 65, is the 126th reigning monarch after his father Akihito, 91, broke with tradition to abdicate in 2019 and become Emperor Emeritus.
There are just three heirs to the Chrysanthemum Throne: Crown Prince Akishino, 59, the Emperor's younger brother ; Prince Hisahito, the 18-year-old son of the crown prince; and finally, Prince Hitachi, 89, the siblings' uncle.
This is the stark reality: if Prince Hisahito chooses not to get married, or does not produce a male child, there would be nobody to succeed the throne.
Already, there has been pushback.
In contrast to his grandfather, the late wartime Emperor Hirohito, who was revered as a deity until Japan lost the war, Crown Prince Akishino said at a news conference in 2024 that politicians should not lose sight of how the royals who are affected by policy are 'real live human beings'.
There are now five unmarried women in the 16-member imperial household, including Princess Aiko, who is 23 years old and the only child of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako.
While commoner women marry into the imperial family, like Empress Masako, princesses who are born in the family lose their royal identity and become commoners themselves when they wed commoners.
The latest to leave the family is Crown Prince Akishino's daughter Mako, 33, who married her college sweetheart in 2021. The couple promptly relocated to the United States and have not returned to Japan since.
On May 30, the Imperial Household Agency said the couple had given birth to their first child, without revealing the gender.
As a solution to the dwindling numbers, the Yomiuri Shimbun suggests allowing princesses to keep their royal status after marriage, with their husbands and children entering the imperial household.
Traditionalists agree that princesses should remain as royals and continue official duties after marriage. But they draw the line at admitting their spouses and children into the family, arguing that this could result in a matrilineal emperor and taint the royal bloodline.
They note that while there have been eight female emperors, they were all unmarried and patrilineal heirs. There has never been a matrilineal emperor .
The Yomiuri, however, believes that the idea of 'one family, two statuses' is unrealistic. As commoners, the spouses and children would be free to express their opinions that could impugn the imperial family's 'political neutrality and dignity'.
It further points to how the unbroken bloodline, across millennia, had been sustained by concubines, with 55 illegitimate children having become Emperors.
Meanwhile, traditionalists also favour bringing back members of 11 former branches of the imperial family that were disbande d after World War II, through 'adoption'. It is said that there are at least 10 unmarried male descendants in their 20s or younger among these branches.
But the idea has very little traction among the public. Eighty years have passed since the war, and members of these branch families would have grown accustomed to life as commoners, outside the public eye and rigid rules of the imperial household.
Kanda University of International Studies lecturer Jeffrey Hall told ST that this plan would 'raise questions about the human rights of the individuals involved', noting that the Yomiuri sees this as 'a more unreliable and unpredictable solution that could dilute public support for the monarchy'.
Dr Hall noted that the monarchy is not a major issue for moderate or centre-right voters, although there is a 'very vocal minority' of extreme conservatives who prefer the Sankei to the Yomiuri for 'more consistently taking their side on culture war issues'.
While they are not the majority of LDP voters, the party would have difficulty winning elections without their support, he said.
'To many Japanese, the insistence on male-only succession seems to clash with the concepts of gender equality and women's rights,' Dr Hall said. 'But die-hard conservatives will do almost anything to protect what they see as one of their nation's most sacred traditions.'
Walter Sim is Japan correspondent at The Straits Times. Based in Tokyo, he writes about political, economic and socio-cultural issues.
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