SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

PHIL205 Political Philosophy

THE MEIJI RESTORATION AND

REPURCUSSIONS ON THE TENNO-SEI

Mariel Raizza Argonza

G3507840T

October 2007

Japanese Words and Names

Japanese personal names in this paper are written traditionally with family name and followed by their given names (e.g. Yamagata Aritomo). Japanese words and names are romanized according to the modified Hepburn system sans the macrons that indicate long vowel sounds (e.g. Choshu instead of Chōshū).

Introduction

More than two hundred fifty years of feudalism and seclusion under the Tokugawa came to an end in January 1868 when self-proclaimed “imperial forces” overthrew the bakufu1 and eventually, the return of political power from the Shogun back to the Tenno-sei (Emperor system)—or so at least on the Meiji Constitution’s paper. The successor to the Imperial House was Meiji Mutsuhito, then fourteen years old. As shall be shown later, the samurai-architects of the Meiji Restoration held the real power in the Meiji government2. Leaders from the main anti-Tokugawa hans (domains)3: Satsuma and Choshu such as Saigo Takamori and Katsura Kogoro, respectively and their successors up until the 1930s filled the top ranks and bureaucracy that monopolized in framing the Tenno’s legitimacy as their own—with notable and effective success both in process and result that remained unchallenged up until the end of World War Two.

In this paper, I present the Tenno’s significance and role in the re-shaping of Japanese political thought and process from the Meiji era onwards. I argue that the so-called “Mandate of Heaven” imposed on the Tenno by virtue of his divine imperial line is what held the socio-political agendas and ideologies of the post-Tokugawa governments—the Meiji Constitution4 and the East Asia Co-Prosperity for examples, both of which were carried out in His name—together. Furthermore, I argue that this transcendental and mystified view of the Tenno is based upon strong Shinto-Confucian ideals that prevailed and reinforced overtime through, for example rescripts in Education as shall be discussed later. As well, the breakdown of the Tenno’s mythology in contemporary years especially after Japan’s defeat of the Pacific War and the Tenno’s own rejection of his divinity marks the separation of government actions from Imperial will and finally, a mortal view of the Tenno.

The Myth of the Tenno

For the Meiji Restoration to have ever happened, it needed more than a decaying Tokugawa government5, the pressure on this system by foreign powers especially by Britain and the United States, and nor was a group of able men to spearhead the coup d’etat enough. However, these men, the Isshin-shishi, more than anyone understood what was needed to complete the equation: the Tenno—and in Japanese factional politics, having the Emperor on your side was nine tenths of the game6. Moreover, this ensured the Isshin-shishi support from the vast majority of the Japanese people because the Tenno was the one legitimate symbol capable of rallying national unity7. And indeed, this was the case especially after the Restoration. When a policy was announced as an imperial will, it became difficult and even dangerous to challenge it8. In fact, the bakufu since its creation was carried out under the Tenno’s name; in other words, the Shogun was the Tenno’s retainer.

It is however notable that since the Kamakura Shogunate, the Imperial Court was almost impotent in the political arena. Only once before the Meiji Restoration did the Tenno exhibit direct rule and Go-Daigo Tenno in the Kenmu Restoration led this against the Kamakura shogunate in the early 14th century where he ruled for a few years until overthrown by Ashikaga Takauji in 13339 and aptly founded the Ashikaga bakufu. Once again, the Tenno returns to the backstage acting as the source of legitimacy for the bakufu government for the next four centuries.

To understand why the Tenno brings this much authority if not legitimacy, we must examine its foundations. When the Japanese monarchy started in roughly the 5th century A.D., the throne’s primary function was ceremonial and was a sacred aspect of the government10. Around the 7th century, there was a shift to giving the Tenno more political involvement: shinsei (direct imperial rule), aside from his ceremonial functions11. At the same period, Temmu Tenno led the compilation of the Kojiki that invented a mythical account of a 1,300-year history of imperial rule in Japan that supposedly started with Jimmu Tenno’s enthronement12. The Kojiki literally describes Jimmu Tenno as a direct descendant of the sun-goddess, Amaterasu13 (and that Japan itself was created by the kami (gods and deities) which, for many centuries, was central to the Japanese idea of their race’s superiority and that Nippon, not Chugoku (China; zhong guo in Mandarin) was the middle kingdom). This is an important implication for a Confucian14 and Shinto-thought dominated society:

“Divinity…in the Far East…is a kind of Ancestor, and one’s human ancestors are like a prolongation of the Divinity; or else they are seen as a bridge between ourselves and It. God is the Heaven or Sun from which we are indirectly descended and of which the Emperor is the incarnation”15.

As such, Shinto validates the connection between Heaven and Imperial family and that the latter was specifically born to rule and their subordinates to follow and serve them16. From an Aquinas perspective, this is a symbolization of cosmic order as the political order.

Moreover, the Tenno is operating under the “Mandate of Heaven”, acting under the concept of jin (Benevolence)—to maintain the social order and allow individual self-nourishment for his subjects. Prominent Tokugawa political writers such as Sorai Ogyu deeply professed this case arguing that it was in accordance with the Way of the Ancient Kings and that the Tokugawa government failed in doing so17. What legitimizes politics under the Way of the Kings was for them to nourish diverse human virtues and not to change or homogenize them18. Ogyu Sorai was referring to his romantic and dynamic vision of a ningenkai (human community) where people would bring together their different talents and build a flourishing society. Shundai Dazai, although not wholly sharing Sorai’s beliefs added that under a failing (Tokugawa) system, there were two options for the people: withdraw and do nothing or revolt—the Isshin-shishi eventually picked the second option19.

Another point to be stressed regarding Benevolence is its specific placement as a virtue for the Tenno alone thereby making it a value that is easily accessible for everyone—a common identity that the Japanese can relate to—a trust in an external truth20, exactly the reason why the Isshin-shishi needed the Tenno to garner the support of the Japanese who would rather be under the Tokugawa otherwise. The Tenno by virtue was and is the embodiment of what is good and desirable. At face value, this may seem to resemble the Platonian idea of what grounds morality or substantial justice—a Divine being—but a caveat: Japan being without any traditions of political theory (though the closest one can get is Confucianism), the Meiji Restoration unlike seventeenth and eighteenth-century England and France, respectively, was not precipitated by public debates on social justice or a new political order21. So while the Tenno is Benevolent, he remains unsurpassable like Heaven22 by other men. The Restoration is true to its name as it kept the balance of power carried over from the past and will be continuously reinforced until the 1940s. In pax-Tokugawa, the Tenno enjoyed (theoretical) constitutional powers exercised not by daimyos (feudal lords) as in the past but by appointed officials who are, as previously mentioned, mostly from the victors of the Meiji Restoration23.

The above discussion explains why the Tenno, through his divinity, is an important source of political legitimacy in Japan as well as how this legitimacy came about. The next section looks at some specific policies that capitalized on the throne.

The Tenno and the Meiji Constitution

The Meiji Constitution defined the Tenno as “sacred and inviolable” with its first chapter stressing the Tenno as the symbol of an unbroken imperial lineage dating back to the world’s creation24. Prominent leaders of the then ten-years old Meiji government such as Ito and Iwakura readily understood that the Tenno was more useful as a symbol and even as a weapon of last resort to quell political dissent as long as he was detached from everyday politics, a counter to some officials still faithful to their Shinto doctrine proposing that the Tenno be an absolute ruler25.

Ultimately, the Ito-Iwakura faction dominated and every government announcements or programs were made in the Tenno’s name and not of his council26 or the Meiji government in general. This gave the ministers who carried out the Imperial will unquestioned support and loyalty from the Japanese people27. For example, the 1885 Rescript28 stressed the obligations to the nation and its monarch but not meddle in politics as well as a sound discrimination of right and wrong and avoidance of extravagance akin to bushido (the Way of the Samurai)29. Another example is the Education Rescript of 1890 that required teachers to instill an absolutist interpretation of the Tenno in their (State-prescribed) courses as well as cultivating a “family” type of relationship (based on Shinto) between Emperor and subjects30.

Such a setup would later be dubbed as kazoku-kokka (nation-family) placing the Tenno as the head and that, in the words of Hozumi Yatsuka31:

“obedience to the family head is obedience to the spirits of the ancestors…since the Emperor sits on the throne in the place of imperial ancestors32”.

Hozumi was not only working under Shinto eclecticism but under the German ideas of staatsrecht that prioritizes State over individual and organic law over natural rights or social contract33. The Meiji constitution’s philosophical framework is largely Prussian-influenced coming from Loren von Stein’s “social monarchy”:

“…such a monarchy existed to arbitrate the competing interests of different groups in society…to personify the general will and remain ‘transcendentally’ above the class struggle, preventing the exploitation of the weak by the strong34.”

However, elements of the monarchy’s social purpose is lost during translation and interpretation but there remained an emphasis on (Confucian) harmony that somehow, needed no amount of democratic ideals.35 To Ito and his fellow-Meiji bureaucrats, political dissent was detrimental to their task of strengthening the nation36. This gave the Tenno exclusive powers37 such as declaration of war, conclusion of treaties, supreme command of the armed forces, extensive ordinance rights, and control over the national assembly38. In truth however, government affairs was entirely under the Meiji oligarchs’ hands. Until the end of World War Two, the Meiji and post-Meiji from governments like the Taisho until the last, Heisei era worked under this framework of “carrying out Imperial will”.

The End of Divinity

Japan’s defeat in WW2 was a devastating blow not only to Japan but equally to the Tenno-sei—then Emperor Hirohito went as far as to denying his own divinity in a public apology. This period saw the breakdown of the Tenno’s legitimacy that the government always referred to for public support and justification for their decisions and actions. Gone was the mythical link between Tenno and ten (Heaven). As the Tenno’s role gradually returned to ceremonial, Shinto became secular and stripped off its previous status as a manifestation of patriotism39.

The American Occupation of Japan included the revision of the Japanese Constitution and eventually, set the beginnings of a constitutional symbolic monarchy40. Writers such as Tsuda Shockiki (Waseda University) linked the Tenno-sei to the past not as a god but as the vessel of culture and added that the essence of the monarchy was that of being a symbol, which the Meiji oligarchs, according to him, adulterated by isolating the Tenno from the people41. Another writer, Watsuji Tetsuro observed that the original term (refers to the the kanji character) for the Tenno was to “unify” the people and was never meant to be a political one but like Tsuada’s point, a cultural unity42. Their scholarship along with that of their colleagues became to be either used by rightists who are still in support of the Imperial House and by leftists seeking for a total abolition of the Tenno-sei against each other.

Much of the framework for the new role of the Tenno was patterned after the British monarchy. The American drafters of the post-WW2 Japanese 1948 Constitution defines the Tenno as such:

“The Emperor’s role would be that of a social monarch, no more…the imperial institution is no longer the source of any authority whatsoever, can exercise no powers, and is certainly not indestructible. The Emperor is no more than the crowning pinnacle of the structure, bearing no functional relation to the frame itself43”.

After much deliberation and debate on the Tenno’s role, the final Constitution looked almost the same as the post-War Constitution drafted by the US. There was a return to the original Shinto ceremonial functions of the Emperor—to the communist party’s dismay—and in the words of Yokota Kisaburo (later to be appointed Chief Justice in 1960), even modern and industrialized nations needed myths and symbols too44. At this point, the influence of Meiji-style governance and thoughts of shinsei are already sealed away in the relics of history paving the way for a new kind of Tenno-sei.

Democratization of the Tenno-sei

The death of Emperor Hirohito ushered in a gradual revamp of the Imperial House’s portrayal. Crown Prince Akihito, unlike his father was educated in a Western fashion and grew up in an era totally detached from Meiji ideology. By this time, Japan has recovered from WW2 and was enjoying rapid economic growth in pre-war levels. His marriage to a commoner, Shoda Michiko was just the beginning of breaking tradition—in the past Imperial marriages were only done within the aristocracy to preserve the sacred Imperial line that supposedly originated from Amaterasu. Furthermore, this marriage links (or at least what the media is trying to link) with democracy and equality because Michiko could have been any other Japanese woman45. Upon their marriage, the Imperial couple became the material for the media in all forms. They were portrayed as “just like any ordinary family”46 something that the growing middle-class families soon came to relate to. This was the time when ordinary housewives owned and had access to home appliances like the washing machine and Michiko would be deliberately portrayed in magazines using and among such common appliances.

It was a symbolic shift from the Tenno being high up in the clouds and “different” to being “like any other man”. Akihito and Michiko would be seen and photographed in a casual manner (e.g. holding hands while ice skating). Moreover, the new Emperor and Empress were also the first ones to ever personally meet their countrymen, as was the case during the Kobe quake when the Imperial couple visited and comforted the victims. Some pictures even show the Empress hugging the sick and wounded. While the general population seems to be extremely enjoying and reveling in this new image of the Imperial House, conservatives from the government criticized the Imperial House of this “casualness” they were showing was unfit for the Emperor and Empress even calling it as a “fungi” infection. The Imperial House mostly ignores such criticisms, however and the marriage of Crown Prince Naruhito to another commoner, Masako47 more than emphasized this. Moreover, fierce debates of the Tenno’s role remained in the late 1980s but would later die out and settle to what it is now currently.

At this juncture, it is already without a doubt that the Tenno-sei has departed from its Meiji roots. Imperial will today is not only meaningless and useless for political legitimacy but is also completely separated from government matters but not from the Japanese people. However, while the Tenno’s path changed from Divine to ordinary, there is something constant: the Tenno remains what he is supposed to be—a symbol of the Japanese consciousness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

Goto, Christopher Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity, Routledge, New York, 2005

Najita, Tetsuo, Tokugawa Political Writings, in Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1998

Reischauer, Edwin & Marius Jansen, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, Tuttle Publishing, 2005

Ruoff, Kenneth, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995 in Harvard East Asian Monographs 211, Cambridge, 2001

Schuon, Frithjof, Treasures of Buddhism, World Wisdom Books, Indiana, 2003

1 Military government of Japan; the administration headed by a shogun, in the name of the emperor from 1192 onwards. In total, there were three shogunal governments: the Kamakura (1192-1333), the Muromachi (1338-1573), and the Tokugawa (1603-1867). Najita, Tetsuo, Tokugawa Political Writings, in Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

2 Technically, the Meiji government is credited to Okubo Toshimichi (Satsuma-han), Saigo Takamori (Satsuma-han), and Katsura Kogoro (Choshu-han). These three men are dubbed as the “Isshin-sanketsu”. Saigo and Katsura died before 1877 (suicide after the short-lived Satsuma Rebellion against the Meiji government and natural death respectively) while disgruntled ex-samurai whose ranks and stipends have been cut as a result of de-feudalization assassinated Okubo in 1878.

3 A coalition instigated by Tosa-samurai Sakamoto Ryoma mainly between Satsuma and Choshu with other domains that came to be known as the “Isshin-shishi” (men of spirit). Notably, Satsuma and Choshu were two of the most influential and powerful domains (Satsuma produced an 800,000 koku of rice yearly 1koku180kgs while Choshu, though producing lesser at 250,000 koku harbored an enviable amount of artillery; as can be guessed part of the partnership was the exchange of rice and artillery between the two domains) and needless to say, biggest rivals in the Imperial Court (for the Emperor’s favor) before the Restoration. Both domains at first, advocated the anti-foreign sentiment of “sonno-joi” (revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians) as a response to the fast-paced opening of Japan to foreigners as well as the unfair trade agreements imposed by countries like Britain and the US which to them, was a form of the Japanese being subservient to foreigners. However, leaders of the Isshin-shishi after the Restoration realized that “expelling the barbarians” at that point would be to the country’s own detriment for modernization and recognition in the international scene. Thus came a new motto: “fukoku kyohei” (rich country, strong military) which would be achieved by learning and assimilating the West’s superior technology and knowledge for Japan’s own progress.

4 Officially came into effect in 1890 and was based upon British and German models of monarchy. For the first time since the Kamakura Shogunate, absolute power was based in the Tenno sharing this with de jure, an elected Diet, but de facto with the Meiji oligarchs (leaders of the Meiji Restoration). The Meiji Constitution, however, was nothing close to having a democratic or republican nature. Its very conception is an epitome of that as it was written in secret by only a handful of Meiji intellectuals and some foreign advisors then brought into effect without any public consent or dialogue.

5 There are many factors that led to the weakening of the Tokugawa’s power base, but convenient examples would be the rise of commerce brought about by the stable environment the Tokugawa has created for the past 200 years, the loosening social classes as a result of (banned) inter-marriages between warrior class and merchant class as the former needed more sources of income (samurai are forbidden to engage in commerce) while the latter wanted the higher status. Finally, there was great dissatisfaction among the samurai of the Tokugawa’s incompetence towards “expelling the barbarians” (i.e. foreigners).

6 Hall, J.W., A Monarch for Modern Japan, in Robert Ward (ed.), Political Development in Modern Japan, 1968

7 Reischauer, Edwin & Marius Jansen, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, Tuttle Publishing, 2005

8 Ruoff, Kenneth, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995 in Harvard East Asian Monographs 211, Cambridge, 2001

9 Ruoff, Kenneth, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995 in Harvard East Asian Monographs 211, Cambridge, 2001

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid

12 Ibid.

13 Goto, Christopher Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity, Routledge, New York, 2005, p.29 (And by default, the entire Imperial line is too. Notably crucial to this was the strict emphasis on the preservation of the bloodline by keeping the throne in one family Ruoff, Kenneth, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995 in Harvard East Asian Monographs 211, Cambridge, 2001)

14 Borrowed from China, became Japan’s philosophy for centuries until its popularity was watered down by modern science that arrived in Japan from the West after the Restoration. Notably, Confucianism served as an important justification for the Samurai rank in the form of bushido (warrior’s code) (Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000).

15 Schuon, Frithjof, Treasures of Buddhism, World Wisdom Books, Indiana, 2003

16 Goto, Christopher Jones, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity, Routledge, New York, 2005

17 Najita, Tetsuo, Tokugawa Political Writings, in Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1998

18 Ibid.

19 Najita, Tetsuo, Tokugawa Political Writings, in Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1998

20 Ibid.

21 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

22 Najita, Tetsuo, Tokugawa Political Writings, in Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1998

23 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

24 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Mainly addressed to soldiers and sailors

29 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

30 Ibid.

31 Professor of Law, Tokyo Imperial Universiry (1889)

32 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

33 Ibid.

34 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

35 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

36 Ibid.

37 These were very useful and prominent during the Pacific War when a fascist-like Japanese State sought its military expansionist policies in Asia: the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

38 Beasley, W.G., The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2000

39 Ibid.

40 Ruoff, Kenneth, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995 in Harvard East Asian Monographs 211, Cambridge, 2001

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ruoff, Kenneth, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy 1945-1995 in Harvard East Asian Monographs 211, Cambridge, 2001

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Crown Princess Masako was the epitome of the new “independent” image of Japanese women of the 90s having been educated in Harvard, Oxford, and Tokyo University and had an established career in the foreign affairs.