Heir of desperation as Japan wrestles with looming royal succession crisis

May 15, 2021 | News On Japan

May 15, 2021 (theguardian.com) - A panel of experts has begun talks on addressing the shortage of heirs to the Japanese imperial throne, as a poll showed that four in five members of the public are comfortable with the idea of women becoming reigning empresses.

Solving the succession crisis has taken on greater urgency due to a scarcity of males in the world’s oldest monarchy and the abdication, for health reasons, of Emperor Akihito.

Emperor Naruhito, who succeeded his father two years ago, has only one child, 19-year-old Princess Aiko. If she marries a non-royal she would have to leave the imperial family and become an ordinary citizen. Aiko could not become empress and her son could not become emperor without a change in the law.

That leaves two heirs: Naruhito’s brother, Crown Prince Fumihito, 55, and his 14-year-old nephew, Prince Hisahito. Nothing short of catastrophe would see Prince Hitachi – Naruhito’s 85-year-old uncle – become emperor.

The recent controversy surrounding the on-off marriage of Princess Mako – the eldest daughter of Fumihito, who is first in line to the Chrysanthemum throne – has added to pressure to rethink the ban on women becoming regnant empresses.

But changes to the country’s male-only succession laws are unlikely, even though only seven members of the imperial family are below 40, and all but one of them are women. Under the 1947 imperial household law, no female member of the family can become a reigning monarch.

A panel of experts recently appointed by the government has vowed to hold “careful discussions” on a range of options to secure a stable future for the imperial family, including opening up the throne to males born to women who are permitted to remain in the household even after marrying “commoners”.

Divisions have already opened up inside the panel, which is expected to report in the autumn, according to the Mainichi newspaper, which warned that if female members continued to leave the family – as Naruhito’s younger sister did after her marriage in 2005 – “the household could be left with no other members of the same generation as Prince Hisahito”.

The prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, told panel members they were dealing with an issue that “goes to the very foundation of this nation,” but expert say he has little appetite for confronting conservatives in his party who insist on maintaining a patrilineal, male-only succession.

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