Imperial pressure made my wife ill, says Japan's Prince
FROM LEO LEWIS IN TOKYO
Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito used a surprise television appearance today to deliver an extraordinary attack on the ways of the Imperial Palace.
Seasoned Japanese royal family watchers said that Prince Naruhito offered the strongest hint ever that he blames the Imperial Household Agency for his wife’s continuing ill health.
He pointed to times when Princess Masako "has been denied her individuality", and said that her decade-long effort to adjust to life in the Imperial family had worn her out.
His comments, part of a rare press-conference that was itself a sharp break with tradition, come just days away from a three-country visit to Europe.
Significantly, it is a trip he will be making without the company of his 40-year old wife, who has cancelled all official engagements since December and remains in seclusion suffering from stress-related ill health.
Using Japanese terms that virtually never appear in imperial statements, Prince Naruhito repeatedly said what a shame it was that she would not be joining him.
He regretted that he was leaving her in Japan and said he was doing so with "painful reluctance". Adding further poignancy to her cancelled travel plans was his explanation that a key part of Princess Masako’s life that had been denied her was the ability to travel outside Japan.
Prince Naruhito reminded his audience that before she married into the imperial family, his cosmopolitan, Harvard and Oxford-educated wife had been a diplomat.
The Prince’s thinly-veiled criticism of palace life fits in with speculation over the historical ill-health of his mother, Empress Michiko, who became the first commoner to marry into the world’s oldest royal family in 1959.
It is an open secret in Japan that the Empress was driven to a nervous breakdown by the pressures of imperial palace life.
Prince Naruhito concluded with vaguer hints about the thorny succession issue, and whether or not Japan will change its rules to allow his daughter, Princess Aiko, to one day sit on the Chrysanthemum throne.
The still unresolved matter is thought to be yet another source of stress for Princess Masako, and the Prince said that he would "continue my efforts to create an imperial system suited for the new age."
Princess Masako’s prolonged ill-health has been a matter of major public speculation in a country where the imperial family is a focus of massive popular interest.
The Prince’s comments follow a surprisingly frank statement made on his 44th birthday in late February. At that time he said that Princess Masako had been made ill by the relentless pressure to produce a male heir, and appealed to the media to allow her to rest.
Significantly, he also asked the Imperial Household Agency for its co-operation.
Since then, however, there has been little word of any improvement in Princess Masako’s health. She has spent most of 2004 convalescing in a villa in the rural prefecture of Nagano with her mother and 2-year old daughter.
She returned to Tokyo late last month at the beginning of Japan’s "Golden Week" of national holidays, reportedly concerned that the town of Karuizawa, where she was staying, would be flooded with concerned well-wishers travelling from across the country.
Japanese Crown Prince demands palace reform
From Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo
CROWN Prince Naruhito of Japan appealed to courtiers yesterday to relax the stifling protocol and isolation which have driven his wife, Princess Masako, into depression.
In a written statement broadcast on Japanese television, the Prince talked of the burdens that have transformed his wife from a confident diplomat to an unhappy woman who is a virtual prisoner in her own palace.
Last month Japanese were stunned when the habitually reticent Prince used a routine press conference to speak of “moves which nullified Masako’s career, and nullify her personality based on that career”. His words suggested something unthinkable in the closed, discreet world of Japanese royalty: an open split between the Crown Prince and his courtiers, particularly Toshio Yuasa, head of the Imperial Household Agency.
More remarkably, his comments seemed to hint at a falling-out with Emperor Akihito, who was said to be “surprised” by his son’s statement. Since his return from a ten-day visit to Europe the Crown Prince has been under pressure to clarify his words.
Yesterday, far from withdrawing complaints about the treatment of his wife, he added to them. “Problems such as the so-called heir to the imperial throne and the fact that we are not allowed to visit foreign countries are attracting excessive attention,” he said in the statement. “The Crown Princess has had to make tremendous efforts not only with those problems, but also with tradition and customs, dealing with the press, and adapting herself to the environment of the Imperial Family.”
He continued: “Henceforth, I want Masako to engage in activities which will reflect the modern era, fully drawing on her career and recovering the confidence she used to have.”
Last month, The Times reported what has been an open secret for months — that rather than suffering from stress and physical illness, as the official version has it, Princess Masako is being treated for depression. She has made no public appearances since last December when she was reported to be suffering from shingles. She has since been on a lengthy retreat to the mountain town of Karuizawa, with her mother and only child, two-year-old Princess Aiko, but without her husband.
Coverage of the Imperial Family is restricted to a small pool of reporters from the main Japanese newspapers and TV stations, which report only what is authorised by the household agency. Yesterday, despite a new policy of allowing registered foreign journalists into news conferences by government agencies, The Times was refused admission to the gathering where the Crown Prince’s statement was released.
In this information void, wild rumours flourish. They include talk of the Prince and the Princess being estranged and of Princess Aiko suffering from autism. But the Crown Prince’s remarks yesterday set out the most credible reasons for Masako’s distress: the extraordinary difficulties of imperial life for a highly educated, cosmopolitan woman.
“From the bottom of her heart, Masako wishes to return to her official duties after mentally and physically recovering her original good health,” he said. “Various measures and ideas are necessary. Henceforth, I want to talk to the Imperial Household Agency about this.”
Until her marriage in 1993, the Princess was a career diplomat in the Japanese Foreign Ministry, with an international upbringing and qualifications from Tokyo, Harvard and Oxford universities.
The household agency has other priorities, above all the propagation of the Imperial Family. After several years without a pregnancy and one miscarriage, Princess Aiko was born following fertility treatment in 2001. But the couple show no sign of producing a son, and only a male heir can succeed to the 2,000-year-old Chrysanthemum Throne.
The man many blame for the Crown Princess’s unhappiness is the agency’s Grand Steward, Mr Yuasa, who delivered the statement.
“I apologise for causing anxiety for the Emperor and Empress, other members of the Imperial Household and the public,” he said. But he conspicuously failed to make any promises about changes to the Princess’s regime.
Good behaviour is matter of survival
By Richard Lloyd Parry
BY THE unhappy standards of the House of Windsor, Japan’s Imperial Family is a model of modesty and tranquillity. Since Emperor Akihito succeeded to the throne in 1989, he has gone out of his way to present the image of an ordinary Japanese family, serious, concerned and in touch with the aspirations of common people.
Family members venture out from time to time to attend school athletic events, ceremonial tree plantings and to support charitable causes.
A stream of diplomats, academics, artists and foreign visitors make their way to the Imperial Palace to pay their respects and enjoy a few minutes of polite chat. Every few days, dressed in the garb of a Shinto priest, the Emperor pays his respects at a shrine to his claimed ancestor, the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu no Omikami.
But although they bear the burdens and duties of royalty, Japan’s Imperial Family enjoy few of its perks. There are no Windsor Castles or Balmorals; the palaces they occupy in the centre of Tokyo have vast grounds but simple interiors.
Apart from a modest seaside villa and a house in the mountains, there are no grand retreats. The family are never photographed careering down the ski slopes, drunkenly dancing or sunbathing on tropical beaches. In the absence of a home-grown aristocracy, and vigilantly watched by courtiers, they have few playmates at all.
The Imperial Family’s good behaviour is as much a necessity as an expression of good manners, a survival mechanism by an institution that is lucky to exist. The blandness and predictability of most imperial utterances avoid anger from the Right and the Left. But the Crown Prince’s remarkable statements of dissatisfaction have changed all that.
