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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Since the appearance of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan in 2000, the unearthing in Japan of new information on the Asia-Pacific war has proceeded apace. Historical war narratives using new documentary evidence and drawing on the insights of various disciplines continue to appear. Oral history, women's history, studies of war prisoners and international law, even theories of postwar “reconciliation,” have widened the perspectives of Japanese historians. Thanks to the work of many progressive historians the ethical dimensions of military history are being opened up and explored as never before. But in no fundamental way have these scholarly efforts altered the picture of Hirohito as the activist, dynamic, politically empowered emperor who played a central role in Japan's undeclared wars. The following discussion recapitulates some of the arguments that I presented earlier when analyzing Hirohito's leadership at the policy level, then goes beyond them to address problems of historical memory. The same Nuremberg and Tokyo principles of individual and state responsibility for war crimes, however, inform this essay just as they did my book.
[1] For representative recent works on problems of war and postwar, see the essays in the eight-volume Iwanami Koza Ajia Taiheiyo senso (Iwanami Shoten, 2005-7); and Kosuge Nobuko, Sengo wakai: Nihon wa ‘kako’ kara tokihanatareru no ka (Chuko Shinsho, 2005).
[2] Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (HarperCollins Perennial Edition, 2001) contains 688 pages of text. More than 350 of these pages treat the Asia-Pacific War and the Tokyo trial. But the remaining half addresses the prewar emperor, the nature of the empire, and problems of postwar remembrance and accountability. See Kawashima Takane, “Haabaato Bikkusu, ‘Showa Tenno’ no yomarekata,” in Kikan senso sekinin kenkyu, No. 41 (Fall 2003), pp. 2-10.
[3] For the “over 130,000” figure see Bernice Archer, The Internment of Western Civilians Under the Japanese 1941-1945 (Routledge Curzon, 2004), p. 5. Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWS of World War II in the Pacific (William Morrow & Co., 1996), p. 96, gives the higher estimate.
[4] Eguchi Keiichi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi 14, Futatsu no taisen (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1989), p. 372.
[5] In the European and Pacific War theaters, total American deaths did not exceed 293,000, according to Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War From Stalin to Gorbachev (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 2; Yui Daizaburo, “Sekaishi no naka no Ajia Taiheiyo senso,” in Iwanami koza: Ajia Taiheiyo senso 1, Naze, ima Ajia, Taiheiyo senso ka (Iwanami Shoten, 2005), p. 261, citing Robert Goralski, World War II Almanac: 1931-1945 (Hamish Hamilton, 1981), pp. 421-28.
[6] See the comments of Yoshida Yutaka, “Kanshusha atogaki,” pp. 336-7, quoting from the work of Masumi Junnosuke, in Showa tenno, ge: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (Kodansha 2002). Translated by Okabe Makio, Kawashima Takane, and Nagai Hitoshi.
[7] Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 39.
[8] For evidence, see Bix, chapters 1 through 4.
[9] Bix, pp. 184-6, 198, 208-9, 211-12, 217-19.
[10] From the start of his reign, Hirohito and his Court Group, with the aid of the last Genro, became the appointers of the prime minister, taking into account, though only when it served their purposes, the preferences of the majority conservative party in the Lower House of the imperial Diet. At such moments they clarified their policy preferences to the prime minister designate. If he later failed to take them into account he would lose their confidence and be unable to govern. In Meiji's time the system was less complex: the Genro chose the prime minister and political parties were at a nascent stage. See Bix, p. 700, endnote 52.
[11] Mori Shigeki, “The ‘Washington System’ and Its Aftermath: Reevaluating After Imperialism From the Perspective of Japanese Historiography,” International Journal of Asian Studies, 3.2 (2006), p. 265.
[12] Bix, pp. 288-9.
[13] Bix, pp. 359, 307.
[14] Bix, p. 322.
[15] Bix, p. 323.
[16] Bix, p. 359.
[17] Bix, pp. 361-2, 365, 367.
[18] Yamada Akira, “Heishitachi no NitChu senso,” in Iwanami koza: Ajia Taiheiyo senso 5, Senjo no shoso (Iwanami Shoten, 2006), p. 35.
[19] Bix, pp. 434-5; Yoshida Yutaka, Ajia Taiheiyou senso (Iwanami Shinsho, 2007), pp. 20-21; Takashima Nobuyoshi, “Rekishikan—Medeia Watching,” Kikan senso sekinin kenkyu, dai 58 go (Winter 2007), pp. 94-95. As Takashima notes, ever since Japan's surrender the Foreign Ministry has avoided public mention of the Japan-Thai Friendship Treaty while condemning the Soviet Union for its violation of the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Treaty.
[20] Bix, pp. 362-367.
[21] Bix, pp. 409-10.
[22] In contrast to the authoritarian political order in the United States under the Bush administration, where the “commander-inchief” and his subordinates publicly defend torture, contempt for the rule of law was never the governing principle of the imperial state.
[23] Bix, Ch. 13, esp. pp. 506-519.
[24] Takashima, “Rekishikan—Media Watching,” pp. 94-95.
[25] Akazawa Shiro, “Tenno no senso sekininron e no shatei” [The Trajectory of the Emperor's War Responsibility] in Iwanami Koza: Ajia-Taiheiyo senso, dai nikan, Senso no seijigaku (Iwanami Shoten, 2005), pp. 235-6.
[26] Cited in Yoshida Yutaka, “Senso sekininron no genzai,” in Iwanami Koza: Ajia-Taiheiyo senso, dai ikkan, Naze, ima Ajia-Taiheiyo senso ka (Iwanami Shoten, 2006), p. 94.
[27] Yoshida, “Senso sekininron no genzai,” p. 96.
[28] Arthur Watts, “The Legal Position in International Law of Heads of State, Heads of Government and Foreign Minister,” Recueil des cours, Vo. 247, No. 9 (1994), pp. 82-83.
[29] Bix, pp. 585-6.
[30] Bix, “The Showa Emperor's ‘Monologue’ and the Problem of War Responsibility” in Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer 1992), 295-363.
[31] Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Kusa no ne fuashizumu: Nihon minshu no senso taiken (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1991), p. 273.
[32] On early postwar attitudes toward Hitler, see Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (The Penguin Press, 2005), p. 809.
[33] On the disintegration of the Soviet Union, see Zubok, pp. 303-35.
[34] See Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005 (Harvard Univ. Press, 2006, esp. chapters 8, 9, 10, and Conclusion.
[35] For detailed periodization and discussion see Akazawa, pp. 226, 237ff; Bix, pp. 674-77.
[36] Yamada Akira, “Heishitachi no NitChu sensou,” in Iwanami Koza Ajia-Taiheiyou sensou, Dai 5 kan, Senjou no shosou (Iwanami Shoten, 2006), p.33, citing Kuwata Zei and Maehara Toshie, Nihon no senso zukai to deeta (Hara Shobo, 1982).
[37] Yoshida Yutaka, “Yasukuni jinja, gokoku jinja,” in Hara Takeshi, Yoshida Yutaka, hen, Iwanami Tenno, koshitsu jiten (Iwanami Shoten, 2005), p. 322; Yasumaru Yoshio, “Kokkashugi to musubu tokui na sonzai subete no rei no hifun ni kenmoku o” in Asahi shinbun (Aug. 9, 2001). Yasumaro calls attention to the medieval Buddhist tradition of no discrimination between enemy and ally (onshin byodo) and contrasts it to the Yasukuni practice of sorting out the war dead.
[38] On protecting the monarchy by refraining from visiting Yasukuni, see Takamatsu Nomiya nikki 8 (Chuo Koronsha, 1997), p. 346, entry of April 30, 1946.
[39] Yoshida Yutaka, “Sengoshi no naka no gunkeiho,” in Kikan senso sekinin kenkyu, No. 25 (Fall 1999), pp. 24-29.
[40] Mark A. Levin, “Nishimatsu Construction Co. v. Song Jixiao et al; Ko Hanako et al. v. Japan,” in American Journal of International Law, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Jan. 2008), pp. 148-9. The San Francisco Peace treaty, signed in September 1951, has been in force since April 1952. The largely American mishandling of its reparations clauses, which were cursory in nature and lacked explicit detail, was a cause of acute disagreements at the time.
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