JAPAN: Japan has taken a major step toward allowing an empress to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne after a government panel said the country should change its succession rules.
The recommendation, after 10 months of deliberation by the panel of hand-picked advisrs, makes it highly likely that three-year-old Princess Aiko will one day rule the world's oldest hereditary monarchy.
The panel was set up by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to resolve the succession crisis facing the imperial family, which has not produced a male baby since 1965.
The crisis had been brewing for years before coming to a head in 2004 when Aiko's mother, Princess Masako, disappeared from public view for almost a year.
Many believe the princess, who was later officially diagnosed as suffering from a "stress-related disorder", crumbled under the pressure of trying to produce a male heir to the family, which claim an unbroken line of 2,600 years.
The panel's findings effectively acknowledge that the 42-year-old princess, who previously suffered a miscarriage, is unlikely to have another child.
Emperor Akihito has three children: Naruhito, who is married to Princess Masako; Akishino, who has no sons, and their sister, Princess Sayako, who is set to abandon the imperial household and marry a commoner.
"The number of eligible imperial heirs is so few in reality," said the panel's leader, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, who also accepted that there is "little possibility" of widening the imperial gene pool by accepting former family members back into the fold.
The once sprawling imperial family tree - and its system of concubines as hired wombs - was severely pruned by the post-war US occupation, which was determined to strip the institution of much of its power.
The panel's recommendations, which were leaked earlier this year, were expected and it is widely thought that Mr Koizumi avoided conservatives who might oppose him. Mr Koizumi said earlier this year the nation would "welcome a female emperor".
The savvy prime minister, who announced yesterday that the government is currently drawing up legislation to revise the 1947 Imperial House Law, knows a popular cause when he sees one: the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper reported last week that 84 per cent of the Japanese public support changing the law, which currently prevents females from succeeding to the throne. All the opposition parties also favour change.
Japan has had eight empresses since the eighth century, including the last, Empress Go-Sakuramachi, who abdicated in 1771, but all were temporarily warming the Chrysanthemum Throne until a male heir could be found, and none gave birth to children who succeeded them.
Opposition to an empress is thus strongest among the traditionalists who believe they are protecting the family's unbroken blood line, particularly among conservative followers of Shinto in the imperial household, who once revered the emperor as a god.
Although Princess Aiko appears an unlikely threat to two millennia of tradition, her ascension is opposed by these conservatives who still preside, shrouded in secrecy behind the high walls of the Imperial Palace, over dozens of male-only rituals which place the emperor at the centre of the universe.