The Showa Emperor: Enlightened Peace, or a Crime Against Humanity?

Emperor Showa, commonly known as Hirohito in the United States, had from the end of World War II to the time of his death in 1989, been one of the most controversial figures relating to the war. Even after his death, many questions still remained as to what the Japanese emperor’s real role was in the planning and execution of the war and of war atrocities committed by Japanese forces. Although the official, public history has always been to label the emperor as a symbolic leader, a pacifist at heart who was powerless to stop the powerful military and elite cliques in the government from taking the country down a militant path, there have always been nagging contradictions to that theory of which many people were aware. Nevertheless, despite the occasional public attempt to question the official history, there has never really been a comprehensive study to assess the emperor’s wartime responsibility. In his biography of the Showa Emperor, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Herbert P. Bix does exactly that. Beginning with Hirohito’s childhood education and going right up to the emperor’s death, Bix paints a portrait of a man who, far from being a frail, powerless constitutional monarch, was the major player in planning and carrying out vital aspects of Japanese foreign policy, and who, even after losing his official power due to the postwar constitution, refused to give up his divine right of rule.

Content
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is divided into four parts and 17 chapters. The book goes chronologically, beginning with the birth of the new prince in 1901 and ending with his death in 1989. Part I, entitled “The Prince’s Education, 1901-1921” details how the young Hirohito was brought up, discusses life in the Japanese Imperial court, and shows how the prince was cultivated from a very young age to follow in the footsteps of his Imperial ancestors as a divine monarch. It talks about how he was taught to idolize his grandfather, the Emperor Meiji, rather than his lame-duck, mentally incompetent father, and how that idolization of Meiji became the root for much of his thinking about being a monarch. It also goes over his general personality from the time he was a baby to when he was a young man, and how knowledge of his future as the Emperor played into relations with his brothers and sisters. Part I ends with Hirohito as a young man of 20 years old, about to be married, and also about to assume the vast duties of the emperorship by acting as regent due to his father’s inability to rule.

Part II, entitled “The Politics of Good Intentions, 1922-1930” is the first glimpse of Hirohito as a ruler. Although he is still in the process of being educated in methods of diplomacy, the military and leadership, he must deal with the signing of several important international treaties and the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. During this period, he is still mostly dependent on his aides and advisors, and the political parties and the Diet still rule the Japanese government. However, there are also foreboding signs of the future: thought control is greatly increased to protect the Imperial family, factionalism begins to develop within the government, and the rift between the civilian government and the military also begins its first stages. Through the developing turmoil, Bix shows how Hirohito made several key decisions that sided him with the militant, right-wing factions in the government.

Part III, “His Majesty’s Wars, 1931-1945,” begins with the infamous “Manchurian Incident” when Japanese soldiers, on the order of their superior officers, blew up a railway bridge in Manchuria and blamed it on Chinese forces. This was the pretext for the war in China, a limited conflict that quickly grew into a wide grab for land by Japan. Bix describes the military’s unilateral action in starting the incident, and how the Emperor, despite being angry at not being consulted, decided to support their actions as long as they produced victory. As the Japanese Empire expanded into China, often using staged incidents by the Japanese military as a cassus belli, the Emperor continued his support for the military. Finally, with the appointment of General Hideki Tojo as Prime Minister, Emperor Hirohito took the final step toward outright belligerency when he ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. Bix depicts the emperor in Part III as a man who meticulously oversaw nearly every aspect of the war, was demanding of his subordinates, and also had little respect for the civilian government. He makes it a point to note that, despite Hirohito’s idolization of the Meiji Emperor, he broke many of the precedents set by his grandfather and took his power as Emperor far beyond what it ever had been. Part III ends with the Emperor’s self-serving refusal to accept the Potsdam Declaration, and his final (in)decision to surrender.

Part IV, “The Unexamined Life, 1945-1989” examines the postwar role of the Emperor in the shaping of modern Japan and his relationship with Douglas Macarthur and the occupation forces. In Part IV, Bix shows that Hirohito was eager to allow the United States to occupy Japan because he feared that, if left to their own devices, the people would rise up and overthrow him. Bix strongly emphasizes in this chapter a main theme in his book: that the Emperor’s sole concern was almost always the preservation of the “kokutai”, or the national polity, which to him translated to his divine right to rule Japan. He rarely showed concern for the suffering of his people, and in fact often privately showed disdain for them. Part IV covers the Tokyo War Crimes trials which, though not as big a farce as they are often portrayed, danced around the issue of the Emperor because the United States, and in particular Macarthur, had deemed it vital to keep the Emperor in order to stabilize Japan as a force against Communism. Finally, Bix leaves us with the picture of a man who, well into his old age, simply could not give up on the idea that his Imperial rule no longer had meeting. After the war, when he was officially relegated to a symbolic status, Hirohito continued to receive secret briefings by the military and civilian government, and continued to try to influence Japan’s politics by holding secret talks with foreign heads of state. Right up to his death, Hirohito refused to believe that he was no longer the divine ruler of Japan.

Commentary
Herbert Bix really does an excellent job with the scope of this book. He covers the Emperor’s entire life, and successfully and credibly lays to rest the common theory that the Emperor Showa was a pacifist who had no real political power. He shows that Hirohito was not only an active player, but was the unquestionable ruler of Japan, and was responsible for its actions. Unlike Sterling and Peggy Seagrave’s vastly inferior and poorly researched The Yamato Dynasty, Bix cites a dizzying number of Japanese sources, many of which are primary documents, including the diaries of court officials, transcripts of conversations, and personal notes of Japanese political leaders. He obviously spent a long time researching this book, and it comes through in its quality and credibility.

As far as actually reading this book, I have two warnings about it: first, it is an academic work. Therefore, it is not meant to be entertaining or fast paced. Honestly, the first part about Hirohito’s childhood is a lot like a trip to the dentist: you know you have to do it, but it is very slow and painful. The first 120 pages or so of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan will probably make a lot of people put it down. The information is interesting, in a way, but it is not particularly exciting. The good news though, is that the rest of the book reads pretty quickly. I cannot guarantee everyone will enjoy it; that all depends on how into the subject you are. However, the Emperor’s conduct during the war is probably what people are most interested in anyway.

My second warning about this book is for the average reader. While I heartily recommend the book because of the author’s exhaustive research and obvious understanding of the subject, it does require more than a casual knowledge of Japan. Bix throws an astounding number of names, Japanese vocabulary, dates, and terms that most people will not know. Not to insult anybody’s intelligence, but because most people are not familiar with Japanese names, keeping track of who is who in this book may be very difficult. You will not find anybody named George, Bill, John or Andrew here. You’ll be dealing with people named Yutaka, Masuzo, Iwao, Tomoyuki, Shinjiro, etc. Trust me, in 700 pages, it can be very tough to keep track of all those names, especially when they are all essentially new to your vocabulary. Moreover, Bix uses a lot of terms peculiar to Japanese history. Are you familiar with the Meiji Restoration? Do you know what the LDP is? Have you ever read the “Imperial Rescript on Education?” If not, you may want to do a little bit of studying before tackling this book. In all fairness, Bix does usually provide at least some explanation for most of the terms he uses. However, if you are not already familiar with them, you may find yourself frequently flipping back through the pages trying to find that sentence or two where he says what the Seyukai is.

Conclusion
I certainly do not want to scare anybody away from reading this. As I said, it is a competent book that very credibly presents a side of history that most people will never hear. I just want to make it clear that this book may be difficult and tedious to read if you have no knowledge or just a casual knowledge of Japan. I strongly encourage anybody with an interest in the subject to at least try reading it. Even without knowing what every term means, it is still plenty easy to grasp the major points; it is mostly just a question of whether or not you will have the patience to do so. As an academic work, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is very well researched and written, so I highly recommend it. I doubt everybody will enjoy it, but those who do will learn a lot.