Japan's royals in the spotlight

By Henry Hilton

Global media attention on the return of Britain’s Prince Harry from Afghanistan can hardly have gone down well with Japan’s imperial minders.

Page after page of photos and strong stories on the young man previously better known for his nightclub exploits in London, coincides with leaks of further problems inside the Japanese imperial family. First, there is an unfair storm over Princess Masako’s convalescence and then the Crown Prince is ticked off for not taking his daughter to visit his parents often enough — a universal problem if ever there was one.

Sonner or later, there is surely going to have to be a major reassessment of the functions and publicity surrounding Japan’s royals. The attention is almost certain to become heavier and comparisons with the British monarchy are going to be made whether the imperial household agency likes it or not.

Short of any highly improbable movement for the abolition of Japan’s postwar system with its strange constitutional statement that the emperor is the symbol of state or a retreat to total seclusion in Kyoto, Japanese society will have to make up its mind on what it wants from its monarchy.

The present problems appear to be growing as rival factions use the media for their own purposes and the public, influenced no doubt by what happens overseas, senses that the arrangements worked out three generations ago are less than satisfactory.

The issues are controversial and few would want to say too much in the light of what can happen when remarks are seen as anti-monarchical. Intimidation works wonders in any society. Yet change is surely called for, despite the substantial reservations of die-hard traditionalists. Their support for the status quo should not sabotage the need to think aloud on what to outsiders looks like an increasingly messy system.

At the heart of any future debate has to be a reckoning with the media. Since information is now obviously both instantateous and global, it is going to be harder and harder to prevent debate. Subjects that may appear to still be taboo within Japan are going to be discussed abroad and then — surprise, surprise — they will be recycled by the press in Tokyo.

This is evident elsewhere too. After all, the Prince Harry story was broken by an American source, though how long the British media would have kept up their self-denying ordinance is anyone’s guess. Publications abroad on Princess Masako now find outlets in Japan, despite whacks across the knuckles by the authorities.

Since the Japanese public wants to know more and more about their royals, there is no real alternative to providing accurate information. It is, of course, a high risk venture and few can yet imagine the British situation where in the past weeks the controversies over the death of Princess Diana are being re-aired yet again and the right to open the wills of past members of the royal family has been accepted by the courts.

How a wider and improved reporting system would work is anyone’s guess. The heavy hand of the Imperial Household Agency, though, would first have to be relaxed and the gamble on whether the monarchy would be instantly reduced to a fit scene for gossip and trivia would have to be accepted.

Few within Japan would wish for a British-style open season where the royals are alternatively viewed as over-paid toffs who do little to earn their crust or battle-scarred heroes. Yet the present Japanese arrangements look certain to end in near-public brawls with the public divided between those exhibiting sympathy for Princess Masako and those who feel it is more than time that she returned to public life. New thinking is surely the only way forward.