New Year's Day, 1988, was ideal. There was gorgeous weather in Tokyo and snowcapped Mt. Fuji could be seen clearly. The Emperor Hirohito, 86, who had undergone successful surgery the previous September, appeared before 87,000 New Year's well-wishers at the Imperial Palace.
The Emperor told the audience--the majority of whom carried small Rising Sun flags--"Happy New Year. I am happy to see you well, and I very much appreciate your concern for my health. I hope we have a good year ahead." Afterward, a loud "Banzai" (Long live the Emperor!) rose in the palace. This scene was reported by the Japanese media in detail. Hirohito is especially dear to the Japanese because he has reigned 62 years, the longest of any Japanese emperor.
Poetic foreign policy
Hirohito's grandfather, the Emperor Meiji, who built the foundation for modern Japan during his 45-year-rule, once composed an ode, in which he said:
Whereas I deem our time and age
Wherein the world in brotherhood is bound,
How is it that the fierce winds rage,
And dash and spread wild waves around?
This famous ode represented the emperor's harmony-seeking spirit and was widely regarded later as embodying a tenet of Japanese foreign policy. Of course Japan has engaged in unfortunate wars in the past, but essentially the Japanese are a relatively peaceful race. They dislike extremes; their instinct is for the middle way and for harmony.
Japan was defeated in World War II 43 years ago. If the emperor had been executed, Japan would have collapsed. It might have been occupied by the Soviet Union, or China and the United States, England, and Holland might have divided Japan among them.
Many kings and rulers have fled their countries when faced with national crises or personal difficulties, or have built up their wealth by robbing the poor. When confronting defeat, Hirohito did neither. He did not flee Tokyo or feather his nest in the last days of World War II, but devoted his energies to finding food for people after the war, when Japan experienced massive shortages.
When Hirohito met with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the allied powers in Japan, he pleaded to save the population from starvation and asked for clemency for former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and other war criminals. General MacArthur thought the emperor was coming to beg for his own clemency. On the contrary, Hirohito said, "I come to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent as the one to bear the sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of the war." MacArthur was reportedly moved "to the very marrow" of his bones.
Thereafter, MacArthur decided to protect Hirohito, despite his aides' insistence on his execution. The general's decision to spare the emperor seems to have been correct, because Japan has since experienced steady development in Western society. It appears that because of
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