Editing Hirohito (section)

====Evidence for wartime culpability====
{{see also|Chrysanthemum taboo}}
Historians who point to a higher degree of the Emperor's involvement in the war have stated that Hirohito was directly responsible for the [[Japanese war crimes|atrocities committed by the imperial forces]] in the Second Sino-Japanese War and in World War II. They have said that he and some members of the imperial family, such as his brother [[Prince Chichibu]], his cousins the princes [[Prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi|Takeda]] and [[Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu|Fushimi]], and his uncles the princes [[Prince Kan'in Kotohito|Kan'in]], [[Prince Asaka|Asaka]], and [[Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko|Higashikuni]], should have been tried for [[war crime]]s.{{sfn|Dower|1999}}{{page needed|date=October 2023}}<ref name="ReferenceA">Bix.</ref>{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2023}} In a study published in 1996, historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta said that the [[Three Alls policy]] (''Sankō Sakusen''), a Japanese [[scorched earth]] policy adopted in [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|China]] and sanctioned by Emperor Hirohito himself, was both directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of "more than 2.7 million" Chinese civilians. In ''[[Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan]]'', [[Herbert P. Bix]] said the ''Sankō Sakusen'' far surpassed [[Nanking Massacre]] not only in terms of numbers, but in brutality. According to Bix, "[t]hese military operations caused death and suffering on a scale incomparably greater than the totally unplanned orgy of killing in Nanking, which later came to symbolize the war".{{Sfn|Bix|2001|p=365}} While the Nanking Massacre was unplanned, Bix said "Hirohito knew of and approved annihilation campaigns in China that included burning villages thought to harbor guerrillas."<ref name="Tajima-notes"/> Likewise,  in August 2000, the [[Los Angeles Times]] reported that top U.S. government officials were fully aware of the emperor's intimate role during the war.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=14 August 2000 |title=Detail All of Hirohito's Role |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-aug-14-me-4022-story.html |access-date=24 November 2023 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

According to [[Yuki Tanaka (historian)|Yuki Tanaka]], [[Emeritus]] Research Professor of History at [[Hiroshima City University]], the war records at the Defense Agency National Institute provide evidence that Hirohito was heavily involved in creating war policies.<ref name="Tanaka 2023">{{cite book |last=Tanaka |first=Yuki |title=Entwined Atrocities. New Insights into the U.S.-Japan Alliance |location=New York |publisher=Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers |pages=xxxvi-xxxvii |year=2023 |isbn=978-1433199530}}</ref> He further stated that Japanese statesmen [[Kido Kōichi]]'s wartime journal undeniably proves that Hirohito had a crucial role in the final decision to wage a war against the Allied nations in December 1941.<ref name="Tanaka 2023"/>

According to Francis Pike, Hirohito was deeply engaged in military operations and commissioned a war room beneath the [[Tokyo Imperial Palace]] to closely monitor Japan's military activities.<ref name="Pike">{{cite web |url=https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/five-myths-about-emperor-hirohito |title=Five Myths About Emperor Hirohito |work=History News Network |first=Francis |last=Pike |date=26 July 2015 |access-date=11 July 2024}}</ref> Pike further noted that the extensive resources required for regular updates to the Emperor often drew complaints from military officials.<ref name="Pike"/> To celebrate significant military victories, he rode his white horse in parades in front of the Imperial Palace.<ref name="Pike"/>

According to Peter Wetzler, he was actively involved in the decision to launch the war as well as in other political and military decisions.{{sfn|Wetzler|1998|p=3}}

Poison gas weapons, such as [[phosgene]], were produced by [[Unit 731]] and authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself, transmitted by the chief of staff of the army. Hirohito authorized the use of toxic gas 375 times during the [[Battle of Wuhan]] from August to October 1938.<ref name="matsuno2729"/> He rewarded [[Shirō Ishii]], who was the head of the medical experimentation unit and Unit 731, with a special service medal.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hirohito-the-war-criminal-who-got-away/#:~:text=Belying%20the%20post%2Dwar%20myth,the%20Germans'%20Josef%20Mengele)%2C |title=Hirohito, the war criminal who got away |work=The Spectator |first=Francis |last=Pike |date=22 August 2020 |access-date=11 July 2024}}</ref>

[[Prince Mikasa]], the younger brother of Hirohito, informed the [[Yomiuri Shimbun]] that during 1944, he compiled a thorough report detailing the wartime atrocities perpetrated by Japanese soldiers in China.<ref name="tribune">{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1994/07/07/new-hirohito-revelations-startle-japan/ |title=New Hirohito Revelations Startle Japan |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=7 July 1994 |access-date=11 July 2024}}</ref> He clarified that he didn't directly discuss the report with Hirohito; however, he added that "when I met with him, I did report on the China situation in bits and pieces."<ref name="tribune"/>  Additionally, he recalled showing Hirohito a Chinese-produced film depicting Japanese atrocities.<ref name="tribune"/>

Officially, the imperial constitution, adopted under [[Emperor Meiji]], gave full power to the Emperor. Article 4 prescribed that, "The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution." Likewise, according to article 6, "The Emperor gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated and executed," and article 11, "The Emperor has the supreme command of the Army and the Navy." The Emperor was thus the leader of the [[Imperial General Headquarters]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=1889 Japanese Constitution |url=https://history.hanover.edu/texts/1889con.html |website=history.hanover.edu}}</ref>

According to Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi of [[York University]], Hirohito's authority up to 1945 depended on three elements:

<blockquote> First, he was a constitutional monarch subject to legal restrictions and binding conventions, as he has so often stressed. Second, he was supreme commander of Japanese armed forces, though his orders were often ignored and sometimes defied. Third, he wielded absolute moral authority in Japan by granting imperial honors that conveyed incontestable prestige and by issuing imperial rescripts that had coercive power greater than law. [¶] In the postwar era, the Japanese Government, some Japanese historians, and Hirohito himself have downplayed or ignored these second and third elements, where were strongest up to 1945; and they have overemphasized the first, which was weakest. Hirohito was no despot. But he did retain 'absolute' power in the sense of ultimate and final authority to sanction a particular policy decision by agreeing with it, or to force its reformulation or abandonment by disagreeing with it. When he really wanted to put his foot down, he did –– even to the army."{{sfn|Wakabayashi|1991|pp=19-20}}</blockquote>

Wakabayashi further adds:
<blockquote>...as a matter of course, [Hirohito] wanted to keep what his generals conquered -- though he was less greedy than some of them. None of this should surprise us. Hirohito would no more have granted Korea independence or returned Manchuria to China than Roosevelt would have granted Hawaii independence or returned Texas to Mexico.{{sfn|Wakabayashi|1991|pp=17}}</blockquote>

Historians such as [[Herbert Bix]], [[Akira Fujiwara]], Peter Wetzler, and [[Akira Yamada]] assert that post-war arguments favoring the view that Hirohito was a mere figurehead overlook the importance of numerous "behind the chrysanthemum curtain" meetings where the real decisions were made between the Emperor, his chiefs of staff, and the cabinet. Using primary sources and the monumental work of Shirō Hara as a basis,{{efn|Former member of section 20 of War operations of the Army high command, Hara has made a detailed study of the way military decisions were made, including the Emperor's involvement published in five volumes in 1973–74 under the title ''Daihon'ei senshi; Daitōa Sensō kaisen gaishi; Kaisen ni itaru seisentyaku shidō'' (Imperial Headquarters war history; General history of beginning hostilities in the Greater East Asia War; Leadership and political strategy with respect to the beginning of hostilities).}} Fujiwara<ref>{{cite book |last=Fujiwara |first=Akira |title=Shōwa Tennō no Jū-go Nen Sensō (The Shōwa Emperor fifteen years war) |year=1991}}</ref> and Wetzler{{sfn|Wetzler|1998}} have produced evidence suggesting that the Emperor actively participated in making political and military decisions and was neither bellicose nor a pacifist but an opportunist who governed in a pluralistic decision-making process. Historian Peter Wetzler states that the emperor was thoroughly informed of military matters, and comensurate with his position and Japanese methods of forming policies, he participated in making political and military decisions as the constitutional emperor of Imperial Japan and head of the imperial house.{{sfn|Wetzler|1998|p=32}} For his part, American historian [[Herbert P. Bix]] maintains that Emperor Hirohito worked through intermediaries to exercise a great deal of control over the military and might have been the prime mover behind most of Japan's military aggression during the Shōwa era.<ref name="ReferenceA" />{{page needed|date=June 2022}}

The view promoted by the Imperial Palace and American occupation forces immediately after World War II portrayed Emperor Hirohito as a purely ceremonial figure who behaved strictly according to protocol while remaining at a distance from the decision-making processes. This view was endorsed by Prime Minister [[Noboru Takeshita]] in a speech on the day of Hirohito's death in which Takeshita asserted that the war "had broken out against [Hirohito's] wishes." Takeshita's statement provoked outrage in nations in East Asia and Commonwealth nations such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.<ref name="Chira1989">{{cite news |last=Chira |first=Susan |author-link=Susan Chira |date=22 January 1989 |title=Post-Hirohito, Japan Debates His War Role |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/22/world/post-hirohito-japan-debates-his-war-role.html |access-date=10 April 2009 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> According to historian Fujiwara, "The thesis that the Emperor, as an organ of responsibility, could not reverse cabinet decision is a [[myth]] fabricated after the war."<ref>''Shōwa tennō no Jū-go nen sensō'', Aoki Shoten, 1991, p. 122.</ref>

According to Yinan He, associate professor of international relations at [[Lehigh University]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Yinan He &#124; International Relations |url=https://ir.cas.lehigh.edu/content/yinan-he |access-date=21 June 2022 |archive-date=5 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220705023707/https://ir.cas.lehigh.edu/content/yinan-he |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Allies of World War II|allied countries]] and Japanese leftists demanded the emperor to abdicate and be tried as a war criminal.<ref name="Yinan-He" /> However, conservative Japanese elites concocted [[jingoism|jingoistic]] myths that exonerated the nation's ruling class and downplayed Japan's wartime culpability.<ref name="Yinan-He" /> Such revisionist campaigns depicted the Emperor as a peace-seeking diplomat, while blaming the militarists for hijacking the government and leading the country into a disastrous war.<ref name="Yinan-He" /> This narrative sought to exonerate the Emperor by shifting responsibility onto a small group of military leaders.<ref name="Yinan-He" /> Furthermore, numerous Japanese conservative elites lobbied the United States to spare the emperor from war crimes investigations and advocated instead for the prosecution of General Hideki Tojo, who held office as prime minister for most of the Pacific War.<ref name="Yinan-He" /> This narrative also narrowly focuses on the U.S.–Japan conflict, completely ignores the wars Japan waged in Asia, and disregards the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during the war.<ref name="Yinan-He" /> Japanese elites created the narrative in an attempt to avoid tarnishing the national image and regain the international acceptance of the country.<ref name="Yinan-He" />

{{Wikidata fallback link|Q11604570}} said that post-war Japanese public opinion supporting protection of the Emperor was influenced by United States propaganda promoting the view that the Emperor together with the Japanese people had been fooled by the military.<ref>{{cite web |last=Awaya |first=Kentarō |others=Timothy Amos trans. |title=The Tokyo Tribunal, War Responsibility and the Japanese People |url=http://www.japanfocus.org/-Awaya-Kentaro/2061 |access-date=10 April 2009 |work=Japan Focus |date=16 February 2006 |publisher=The Asia-Pacific Journal}}</ref>

In the years immediately after Hirohito's death, scholars who spoke out against the emperor were threatened and attacked by right-wing extremists. [[Susan Chira]] reported, "Scholars who have spoken out against the late Emperor have received threatening phone calls from Japan's extremist right wing."<ref name="Chira1989" /> One example of actual violence occurred in 1990 when the mayor of Nagasaki, [[Hitoshi Motoshima]], was shot and critically wounded by a member of the ultranationalist group, [[Seikijuku]]. A year before, in 1989, Motoshima had broken what was characterized as "one of [Japan's] most sensitive taboos" by asserting that Emperor Hirohito bore responsibility for World War II.<ref>{{cite news |last=Sanger |first=David |date=19 January 1990 |title=Mayor Who Faulted Hirohito Is Shot |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/19/world/mayor-who-faulted-hirohito-is-shot.html?sec=&spon= |access-date=10 April 2009 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>

Regarding Hirohito's exemption from trial before the [[International Military Tribunal of the Far East]], opinions were not unanimous. Sir [[William Webb (judge)|William Webb]], the president of the tribunal, declared: "This immunity of the Emperor is contrasted with the part he played in launching the war in the Pacific, is, I think, a matter which the tribunal should take into consideration in imposing the sentences."<ref>{{cite book |last=Fleury |first=Jean Sénat |title=Hirohito: Guilty or Innocent |year=2019}} Prologue, p. xxvi.</ref> Likewise, the French judge, [[Henri Bernard (magistrate)|Henri Bernard]], wrote about Hirohito's accountability that the declaration of war by Japan "had a principal author who escaped all prosecution and of whom in any case the present defendants could only be considered accomplices."<ref>{{cite book |last=Pike |first=Francis |title=Hirohito's War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945 |year=2015}}, p. 120.</ref>

An account from the Vice Interior Minister in 1941, Michio Yuzawa, asserts that Hirohito was "at ease" with the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] "once he had made a decision."<ref name="Yuzawa-memo">{{cite journal |last=Yamaguchi |first=Mari |date=27 July 2018 |title=Newly released 1941 memo says Emperor Hirohito 'at ease' with attack on Pearl Harbor |url=https://www.staradvertiser.com/2018/07/27/breaking-news/newly-released-1941-memo-says-emperor-hirohito-at-ease-with-attack-on-pearl-harbor/ |journal=Honolulu Star-Advertiser |access-date=26 February 2020}}</ref>

Since his death in 1989, historians have discovered evidence that prove Hirohito's culpability for the war, and that he was not a passive figurehead manipulated by those around him.<ref name="Yinan-He" />