Japan’s recent history, particularly over the past two decades, demonstrates a deep, silent, and gradual process of transformation that is slowly eroding the social and political system established after the country’s defeat in World War II. If such a thing were to occur in Europe, we would call it a ‘counterrevolution,’ but in Japan, we might instead call it a ‘restoration.’ This is because, as the result of the revision of the Constitution, the educational system, and other core institutions, the Kokutai (i.e., the mystical understanding of the State as an organic unity centred on the Emperor and its historical mission) is being restored. Without expanding too much upon the comparison between pre-war and post-war Japan, which would require an article on its own, I will look specifically at the main actors responsible for this change, in particular the most influential of them all: the Nippon Kaigi.
What makes this organisation so interesting is precisely its leading role within a well-established network of associations, religious organisations, and political parties that are behind what I call the ‘Reiwa Restoration.’ Indeed, there has been no military coup (much to the disappointment of Yukio Mishima), nor are there mass protests on the streets, nor is a highly capable, populist leader acting on his own personal initiative. It is, rather, a well-ordered, administrative readjustment of the country’s institutions, carried out over a long period of time, patiently building public consent, and delivering—at the right moment—radical changes.
It is important to keep in mind that such an arrangement was possible in Japan only because of a unique feature of its society: the unresolved tension between the country’s two souls. On one hand, there is the pre-war, militaristic, theocratic, and traditionalist Japan centred on the Kokutai conception of the Imperial institution and State Shinto religion. On the other hand, there is the Japan forged by the Allied Occupation: liberal, secular, and democratic—almost republican—of which the 1947 Constitution, drafted by General MacArthur’s Staff, is the highest expression. The situation is one of thesis and antithesis living together, in constant tension for over seven decades, without producing a synthesis. It is a tension that, sooner or later, must be resolved in some way; and that resolution is what we are witnessing in the 21st century.
The great watershed moment came in the 1990s. From 1947 until the end of the Cold War, the post-war system was strengthened by economic growth and prosperity, reinforced by Japan’s status as an essential U.S. ally in the Far East, while the U.S. provided their military presence in compensation for Japan’s own demilitarisation. The 1990s, however, brought some major changes: the end of the Cold War raised significant questions about the strategic role of Japan; and its main ally, the U.S., began to perceive it as an economic competitor (a view that has been diminished by the growing rivalry with China). At the same time, the Japanese economy stagnated, shaking another of post-war Japan’s pillars. Then, in 1995, the Kobe earthquake left over 6,000 people dead and 300,000 displaced. The deadly Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Underground, carried out by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, further shook the confidence of Japanese society.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Nippon Kaigi was established in 1997. It merged two existing organisations: the National Conference to Protect Japan, a mostly political association which had several war veterans amidst its members, and the Society to Protect Japan, which had a more religious character. It inherited the common goals shared by its predecessors: to restore the Kokutai by enlarging the political role of the Emperor and bringing back his sacred/religious dimension; rejecting Article 9 of the Constitution, which forbids Japan to wage war or possess armed forces; and reaffirming a more conservative and nationalistic narrative about national identity.
In the years that followed, the Nippon Kaigi gained footholds within civil society, the military (i.e., the Self-Defence Forces, the democratic and demilitarised replacement for the Imperial Armed Forces), and the religious leadership, finding supporters within both the main Shinto organisations as well as within other religious movements (religion-wise, Japan presents a rather fragmented mosaic). Finally, it became a decisive force within the Liberal Democratic Party, the political party that has ruled over Japan since 1957, whose leadership have always held the latent aim of drafting a new ‘sovereign’ constitution.
The role played by tradition in Japanese society—of which the Shinto religion and the Imperial Institution are the highest expression—has also facilitated this long-running transformation. Shintoism is led by the Association of Shinto Shrines and the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership, responsible respectively for the management of the shrines and holy sites and for organising the clergy. Shinto is the organised collection of ancestral Japanese cults that, during the Meiji Restoration, were organised into State Shinto: a public cult, similar to the ancient Roman Religion, with the emperor regarded as a demi-God. It served as the foundation of the pre-war Japanese state. Although deprived by the Allies of its official status after the war, the religion survived intact, while the emperor himself, having renounced his sacred status on paper, nevertheless continued performing his ritual duties and claiming descendance from the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu.
The emperor, silently and without losing his impartiality, has seemed implicitly to endorse the ongoing metapolitical transformation, by the simple act of performing his ritual duties. For by claiming for himself a sacred quality, he oversteps the role of the representative of a secular state that is assigned to him by the Constitution. Interestingly, at the moment of his abdication in 2018, the Emperor Heisei (Akihito) showed his more human side by talking about his old age and his inability to continue ruling. His son, however, was enthroned in a Shinto religious ceremony, naming his Imperial Era “Reiwa,” which translates as “The Harmonious/Peaceful Command.” It is a name which—chosen at the peak of Shinzo Abe’s popularity, when he was politically stronger and the Article 9 revision seemed imminent—sounded like an eloquent description of the direction soon to be followed.
Although this political process cannot be credited to a single individual, it was, without doubt, catalysed through the political genius of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, beginning with his coming to power in 2007. A devout Shintoist, a fervent monarchist, and a charismatic leader, Prime Minister Abe (who happened to be a member of the Nippon Kaigi) opened the doors of the LDP to the association, choosing most of his ministers from its ranks and allowing it to become a hegemonic force within not only his own party, but also within the other parties of his coalition. He deserves credit for his attempts to relaunch the economy and reverse the negative demographic trends by instituting the most active policies, thereby restoring the Kokutai and making Japan into a more active international actor.
Examples of such policies are education reform (first enacted in 2007 and the further modified in 2018 to reintroduce patriotic values in schools) and the reinterpretation of Article 9 in 2014, which allowed foreign deployments of the Self-Defence Forces and represented a first step towards its revision. A major symbolic action was the institutional participation in celebrations at the Ise Shrine, dedicated to Sun Goddess Amaterasu, such as during the 2019 G20 in Osaka and at the more controversial Yasukuni Shrine, where all the fallen soldiers (including WW2 war criminals) are worshipped as Kami (i.e., tutelar deities of Japan). Although his resignation in 2020, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, temporarily seemed to halt the transformation process, the influence that the Nippon Kaigi has achieved yet endures.
The results of the parliamentary elections on the 27th of October, in which the LDP failed to achieve a majority, appear to challenge this narrative. However, while the electoral outcome is symptomatic of the Japanese public’s frustration with the LDP (largely because of its recent corruption scandals), I would not give it an excessive weight. Provided that the opposition parties were to form a government, it would not be the first time that such a thing had happened, and the country is and remains ultimately a parliamentary democracy. Second, and most importantly, this is a long-term process rooted in Japanese society, where a traditional and Imperial soul was caged for seven decades within a hypermodern, secular, and liberal superstructure. Hence, the processes set in motion in Japan will not be stopped by an electoral defeat. They will return, over and over again, until they reshape the country’s structure in a Hegelian synthesis of those two polarities.
