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That’s because the Japanese emperor has never been solely—or even primarily—a political figure. Indeed, no Japanese emperor has held any real political power since Godaigo in the 14th Century, and he wound up having to flee for his life in a power struggle.

At first, the emperor combined three roles: political, religious, and moral. And now I’m going to stop using the word emperor here, because that’s a mistranslation. Not that there is a good translation for the Japanese term: tenno. (Its literal meaning is “heavenly sovereign”.) The Japanese were interested in empire-building for only about 70 years, and that ended 60 years ago.

In fact, the tenno probably spends more time performing his duties as the chief Shinto priest, or shaman, than he does in his limited political role of smiling and shaking hands with His Excellency the Ambassador from Lower Smegma. It’s been the practice throughout most of Japanese history for the tenno to delegate governmental authority to others. And it’s a long history—the Japanese Imperial line is the oldest heredity monarchy in the world and predates the country’s recorded history.

It’s also worth noting that the Japanese (as did the Chinese) traditionally considered the concept of morality to be separate from religion, which is in sharp contrast to the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as that of Islam. One reason is that Shinto has no sacred literature that requires its believers to behave in certain ways, other than in certain rituals.

A Japanese friend once spent an evening years ago in a small party with Prince Takamado (in a private room at a yakitori!). The prince, who was a younger cousin of the current tenno, died almost four years ago of heart failure after a strenuous handball match. During the evening, the group discussed the contemporary role of Japan’s Imperial family, and Prince Takamado told them that the family members themselves see their job as primarily that of setting a moral example for the country.

So, if a media outlet implicitly compares the Japanese “emperor” in the next couple of days to European royalty, remember that the figure of the tenno is much closer to being a combination of the English monarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury than he is to the monarch alone.

In fact, he’s probably more analogous to the Catholic Pope than he is to the Queen of England.

And we all know that the Catholics don’t ordain female popes.

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The first came as a direct result of a Japanese-language editorial titled “Change Needed at Yasukuni”, written by Hisahiko Okazaki, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Thailand, in the August 24 Sankei Shimbun. The editorial has been translated into English and reprinted here in the Japan Times (registration required).

Okazaki uses most of his space to comment on a George Will column about on Yasukuni, which Japundit linked to last week. The former ambassador finds a lot to admire in Will’s column, and quotes him about the Yushukan museum located next to the shrine:

“The museum adjacent to Yasukuni says ‘The Great East Asia War’ began because, when the New Deal failed to banish the Depression, ‘the only option open to Roosevelt . . . was to use embargoes to force resource-poor Japan into war. The U.S. economy made a complete recovery once the Americans entered the war.’ ”

As Will puts it, “That is disgracefully meretricious — and familiar. For years, a small but vocal cadre of Americans — anti-FDR (President Franklin D. Roosevelt) zealots — said approximately that.”

At first, Okazaki seems to soft-pedal Will’s blunt commentary:

The exhibit reflects, if to a lesser extent than in other countries, some of the anti-America feelings that exist around the world.

But then he brings the hammer down:

It may be true that America eventually recovered from the Depression thanks to its economy going on a war footing, but the theory of premeditated action is something else. I can only describe it in terms similar to those used by Will — immature in historical judgment, one-sided, cheap, lacking in intellectual integrity and so on.

I demand that the exhibit in question be removed from Yushukan. Other exhibits, such as wartime films designed to stir up the fighting spirit, are justifiable as historical testaments. But this cheap view of history damages the dignity of Yasukuni. Should the exhibit remain, I would not be able to defend Yasukuni anymore.

Why was the opinion of this former ambassador important? Because it seems to have gotten results. Here’s what the Japan Times added in parentheses to the end of the editorial:

(Editor’s note: Yasukuni Shrine decided to make a necessary change to the aforementioned Yushukan exhibit in accordance with suggestions by the author after the original Japanese version of this article appeared in the Seiron column of Sankei Shimbun on Aug. 24)

What was “a necessary change”? The Japan Times could take its journalistic duties more seriously and be specific, but perhaps it was the English-language reference in the museum that charged Roosevelt with plotting war against Japan to end the Depression.

Does this mean the people in charge at Yasukuni are starting to pay attention to public opinion abroad? Could this small step—whatever it is—signal other changes at the shrine at the future? We’ll have to see.

It should not be lost on observers that the change at the shrine was spurred by a Japan-friendly, dispassionate presentation by George Will that eschews moralizing and blame. It might be an object lesson for the tirebiters of the left about the efficacy of yet another predictable, finger-wagging harangue, but they’re unlikely to get the point. Finger-wagging, haranguing, and tirebiting are their chief enjoyments in life, after all.

Meanwhile, the second Yasukuni nugget is the news of their rejection for enshrinement of a Japanese Coast Guard officer killed while in wartime action. This is curious for a facility dedicated to memorializing Japan’s war dead.

As this article in the Japan Times explains (registration still required), Sakataro Nakatani was killed when his Japan Coast Guard ship hit a mine in a secret minesweeper unit operating off North Korea during the Korean War.

The incident occurred just after Japan’s pacifist constitution took effect, and Nakatani’s elder brother Toichi, who wants the sailor enshrined, claims the Maritime Safety Agency suppressed information about the accident and destroyed the records.

Yasukuni sent him a letter rejecting the request saying that “the Korean War at this moment is beyond the scope” for enshrining wartime fatalities.

Evidently, the people at Yasukuni realize there are limits, even for people who aren’t war criminals. Though the Japanese Coast Guard was involved in an operation whose objective was to save lives, rather than take them, the operation itself was illegal under the Constitution.

Of course, Article 9, the peace clause of the Japanese Constitution, still remains in force today. That would mean any members of the Self-Defense Forces serving in Iraq unlucky enough to be killed on duty also would be deprived of the honor of having their souls enshrined at Yasukuni.

What does this portend for the future? On the one hand, someone at Yasukuni seems to be exhibiting a sense of propriety and is paying attention to what others think, while on the other, the Shinzo Abe administration, which is likely to succeed that of Junichiro Koizumi later this month, will press for an amendment to the Constitution’s peace clause. We are sure to see some changes, but the contour of those changes is still unknown.

This follows the pattern that is often the rule for transitions that occur in this country—subtle, incremental, giving something to everyone involved, and resulting in an inherently logical solution from a Japanese perspective.

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Opinions are divided about the results of the Chinese policy of limiting couples to one child. On the one hand, this Reuters article approvingly quotes Malcolm Potts of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley:

“For China, and the world as a whole, the one child policy was one of the most important social policies ever implemented,” he wrote, saying other countries from Afghanistan to Nigeria with high population growth had lessons to learn.

Remember that Mr. Potts is speaking of a policy adopted by an unelected Communist dictatorship that enforces its edict through mandatory birth control and the forced sterilization of women. The government supplies ultrasound devices for use in involuntary inspections to ensure that women have not removed their IUDs. There are also frequent reports of women being sterilized without their knowledge in the delivery room immediately after giving birth to their sole, government-approved child.

Raise your hands if you’re surprised that Mr. Potts, the man who thinks this is “one of the most important social policies ever implemented”, is affiliated with UC Berkeley, the citadel of American leftist academia. (Whatever happened to the women’s right to choose?) Mr. Potts also heartily recommends the measure to other countries because he believes it was the factor that lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty.

On the other hand, Lifenews.com—who of course have an agenda of their own—in their report on the same story reveal that the Chinese way of birth control has had other, less-than-salutary consequences:

The imbalance has given rise to a culture of massive sex-trafficking and the kidnapping of teenagers and young adults to be forced into marriage…The country has also become a nation of bachelors as Chinese men have problems finding potential wives and starting families. This has contributed to a rise in crime, prostitution, and other problems…Some Chinese are selling their girl babies to those seeking girls for their sons. Chinese officials have uncovered massive baby-selling schemes including finding newborns in bags in the back of trucks and on buses on their way to be sold. The poor parents of unwanted newborn girls sell their babies for a little as $8.

What neither of these articles mentions is the consequences all these surplus males may have outside of China. Young men lacking a sexual outlet are a potentially explosive group—all that life energy has to come out somehow—and that explosiveness is multiplied by the sheer numbers of the Chinese population. Will the Chinese government eventually decide that the best way to handle these bronc-less buckaroos is funnel them into the military to serve as cannon fodder enforcing an increasingly reckless foreign policy?

And since most of these young men are only children, our universal experience in everyday life should tell us that a significant percentage of them probably behave like snotty twits secure in the knowledge that they’re the flower in the center of the universe—which is another endemic problem of the Chinese as a whole to begin with. (And just what did you think the Chuka of Chuka ryori meant anyway?)

Of course, the people who would welcome this inflated male presence in Chinese society are young females, because it gives them a larger pool of potential mates to choose from, and gay men, but this Times of London article from last year suggests that Chinese authorities and society as a whole do not seem to be ready for a Beijing version of Castro St. just yet.

The most glaring omission in these reports is the real reason that modern Chinese women are no longer interested in large families. The authors of the British Medical Journal article found that while a majority of women want two children, fewer than 6% say they want more than two. Indeed, the Chinese birth rate is now below replacement level.

Some would have us believe this is due to the single-child policy, which was introduced to ensure that China would be able to feed its population. Yet several European countries and Japan also have low birth rates without having had to resort to draconian population control, and Japan, Taiwan, and Israel have no trouble feeding their people despite high population densities and a lack of arable farmland.

It is axiomatic that families have fewer children as a society grows more prosperous. And what do those European countries, Japan, Taiwan, and Israel have in common? Stable prosperity generated by free markets and participatory democracy.

But it’s unlikely that Chinese Marxists and their Berkeleyite running dog lackeys could—or would even want to—connect dots that are the size of basketballs.

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