One could read the Emperor’s words as a gentle reminder to politicians that any solution to the succession question must carry public legitimacy, while also allowing his own sensitivity to public sentiment to be subtly conveyed, whatever course the government takes.
This is not the same as saying he hoped the plan would be “understood by the people,” as this NYT article puts it, which risks making it sound as if the Emperor was endorsing the current proposal and simply asking for understanding.
Reyhan Silingar
Reyhan Silingar
The current proposal would (1) let female royals retain status after marriage (some improvement here) & (2) allow adoption of male-line men from former imperial branches, but it still does not open a path to a female emperor - despite polls showing strong public support for one.
I am also excited to begin the next stage of this work at Harvard University as a Reischauer Institute Postdoctoral Fellow this August, where I will develop the dissertation into a book while continuing work on my next project, How Wars End: Japan’s Endgame as Global History.
Happy to share that I passed my PhD viva with no revisions today! My dissertation traces how Japan mobilised monarchy as a flexible instrument of statecraft across the remaking of the international order from 1921 to 1975.
My sincere thanks to my examiners, Prof Fredrick Dickinson and Dr David Motadel, for their generous feedback, to Prof John Nilsson-Wright for chairing the discussion so thoughtfully, and above all to my supervisor, Prof Barak Kushner, for his unwavering support throughout.
The February 26 Incident of 1936, which happened on this day ninety years ago, was modern Japan’s most serious coup attempt and led to four months and twenty days of martial law.
