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| JUNJI KUROKAWA / AP |
| GENERATION IN WAITING: Will Prince Akishino (center) and Princess Kiko (center left, in blue) provide the royal family with a long-awaited male heir? |
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| Japan's Mystery of Majesty |
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A succession crisis has led to debate on the monarchy—and the shadowy agency behind it |
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By Jim Frederick | Tokyo |
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Posted Monday, August 28, 2006; 20:00 HKT
Late on the afternoon of aug. 16, an imperial motorcade departed from Prince Akishino's royal residence in Tokyo and headed for Aiiku Hospital. The main car carried Akishino and his wife, Princess Kiko, elegantly attired in a checkered gray suit. As the unhurried motorcade reached the hospital in central Tokyo, where a throng of reporters and onlookers had gathered, Kiko opened the window and offered the crowd what the Japanese media have dubbed her "princess smile": an enigmatic expression that suggests she knows she's fulfilling her royal destiny. Kiko had come to the hospital to prepare for the arrival of her third child, scheduled for birth via a caesarean section on Sept. 6. Three weeks is a long hospital stay for an expectant mother, but Kiko is 39 years old and her doctors have every reason to exercise caution: she is quite possibly carrying the future Emperor of Japan.
For a generation, Japan's royal family has been gripped by a succession crisis. By law, the throne can pass only to males. But Emperor Akihito's sons—Crown Prince Naruhito, 46, and Prince Akishino, 40—have so far produced three girls between them. With the chance of a royal baby boy looking increasingly remote, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi backed an initiative that sought to change the succession rules to allow a female heiress. The plan was shelved when Kiko's surprise pregnancy was announced in February, once more reviving hopes for a male heir. Yet few details of the pregnancy—let alone the all-important gender of the baby—are likely to emerge before the appointed hour. As Kiko rests in Aiiku Hospital, which was built with funds partially donated by Emperor Hirohito to commemorate the birth of his own son Akihito, she remains deep in the impenetrable cocoon of secrecy and security that is the hallmark of the Imperial Household Agency (IHA), the mysterious government body that manages every detail of the royal family's affairs.
The IHA's careful control over such matters lends an air of orderly dignity to this historic drama. Scratch the surface, however, and there's far more confusion and uncertainty than meets the eye. There is, of course, the possibility that Kiko will have a girl, instantly reigniting the controversy over whether a woman should be allowed to become Empress. There is the strange, anachronistic role in public life of the IHA, once an almighty organization that's now scrambling to retain power and relevance. There are the efforts of conservatives to use the royal family to further their own nationalistic agenda. And there is the larger, hopelessly unresolved question of what, if any, role this ancient monarchy should play in modern-day Japan.
Continued...
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