Skip to footer

A new law allows Japan Emperor Akihito to abdicate. Who would replace him?

With the recent passing of a law allowing Japan's 83-year-old monarch to resign from the throne, discussion of ending male-only succession is at the forefront of thought.

|
Kim Kyung Hoon/Reuters/File
Japan's Emperor Akihito smiles at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on February 23, 2011.
  • By Mari Yamaguchi Associated Press

| Tokyo

Japan's parliament on Friday passed a law allowing Emperor Akihito to become the country's first monarch to abdicate in 200 years, but put off a debate over how to tackle the shrinking royal population and whether to allow women to ascend the throne.

In veiled language, the 83-year-old emperor expressed his wish to abdicate last August, citing his age and health.

Under the law enacted Friday, his abdication must take place within three years.

Current succession rules allow only men from the paternal bloodline to ascend the 2,000-year-old Chrysanthemum Throne. Women, but not men, are forced to renounce their royal status if they marry a commoner.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservative government supports male-only succession. Akihito's son, Crown Prince Naruhito, is next in line.

Naruhito's only child is a girl, and his younger brother, Prince Akishino, has two adult daughters and a 10-year-old son, Hisahito. This means only one of the emperor's four grandchildren is an eligible heir.

After Naruhito's daughter was born, a government panel discussed the possibility of allowing female ascension, but the talk quickly faded after Hisahito's birth.

Akihito's coming abdication has rekindled concerns about a shortage of heirs.

The Abe government avoided taking up divisive issues involving the status of female royals, which would have required a time-consuming and broader overhaul of the 1947 Imperial House Law.

To secure opposition support, the ruling party did agree to a non-binding attachment to the bill calling on the government to study ways to improve the status of princesses.

That could include allowing them to keep their titles so that they can make up for the declining royal membership and continue to perform some royal family public duties.

The abdication law applies only to Akihito and expires in three years, to avoid putting future monarchs at risk of forcible abdication due to political manipulation. The law was needed because the 1947 Imperial House Law does not provide for abdication.

Japanese media reports have said officials are considering having Akihito abdicate at the end of 2018, when he would turn 85 and mark nearly 30 years on the throne. No date has been announced yet.

The last emperor to abdicate was Kokaku in 1817.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to A new law allows Japan Emperor Akihito to abdicate. Who would replace him?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2017/0609/A-new-law-allows-Japan-Emperor-Akihito-to-abdicate.-Who-would-replace-him
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe