Editing Hirohito (section)

===Imperial status===
Hirohito was not put on trial, but he was forced{{sfn|Dower|1999|pp=308–318}} to [[Humanity Declaration|explicitly reject]] the quasi-official claim that Hirohito of Japan was an ''[[arahitogami]]'', i.e., an incarnate divinity. This was motivated by the fact that, according to the [[Meiji Constitution|Japanese constitution of 1889]], Hirohito had a divine power over his country which was derived from the [[Shinto]] belief that the Japanese Imperial Family were the descendants of the sun goddess [[Amaterasu]]. Hirohito was however persistent in the idea that the Emperor of Japan should be considered a descendant of the gods. In December 1945, he told his vice-grand-chamberlain Michio Kinoshita: "It is permissible to say that the idea that the Japanese are descendants of the gods is a false conception; but it is absolutely impermissible to call [[wikt:chimerical|chimerical]] the idea that the Emperor is a descendant of the gods."{{sfn|Wetzler|1998|p=3}} In any case, the "renunciation of divinity" was noted more by foreigners than by Japanese, and seems to have been intended for the consumption of the former.{{efn|Many foreigners, including those from the occupying power, were from [[Western countries]] steeped in monotheistic [[Abrahamic traditions]].}} The theory of a constitutional monarchy had already had some proponents in Japan. In 1935, when Tatsukichi Minobe advocated the theory that sovereignty resides in the state, of which the Emperor is just an organ (the ''tennō kikan setsu''), it caused a furor. He was forced to resign from the House of Peers and his post at the Tokyo Imperial University, his books were banned, and an attempt was made on his life.<ref>Large, Stephen S.; ''Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography'', p. 60; Routledge, 1992.</ref> Not until 1946 was the tremendous step made to alter the Emperor's title from "imperial sovereign" to "[[constitutional monarch]]."<ref name="tandfonline.com">{{Cite journal |last1=Kawai |first1=Kazuo |year=1958 |title=The Divinity of the Japanese Emperor |journal=Political Science |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=3–14 |doi=10.1177/003231875801000201}}</ref>

Although the Emperor had supposedly repudiated claims to divinity, his public position was deliberately left vague, partly because [[General MacArthur]] thought him probable to be a useful partner to get the Japanese to accept the occupation and partly owing to behind-the-scenes maneuvering by [[Shigeru Yoshida]] to thwart attempts to cast him as a European-style monarch.

Nevertheless, Hirohito's status as a limited constitutional monarch was formalized with the enactment of the [[Constitution of Japan|1947 constitution]]–officially, an amendment to the Meiji Constitution. It defined the Emperor as "the symbol of the state and the unity of the people." His role was redefined as entirely ceremonial and representative, without even nominal governmental powers. He was limited to performing matters of state as delineated in the Constitution, and in most cases his actions in that realm were carried out in accordance with the binding instructions of the Cabinet. In 1947, Hirohito became the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people under the nation's [[Constitution of Japan|new constitution]], which was written by the United States.<ref>Urs Schöttli, "The enduring value of Japan’s emperor"  ''GIS Reports: Politics'' June 11, 2019 [https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/japans-emperor/ online]</ref>

Following the [[Iranian Revolution]] and the end of the short-lived [[Central African Empire]], both in 1979, Hirohito found himself the last monarch in the world to bear any variation of the highest royal title "emperor."