Emperor urges Japan to be ‘open to the outside’

Retiring Japanese Emperor Akihito stressed the desire for peace and urged his country to be open to the world with “sincerity” at a ceremony marking 30 years of his reign on Sunday.

Having spoken the need to remember the horrors of war on many occasions, Akihito recalled that after his father’s death in 1989, his wife, Empress Michiko wrote a traditional poem about peace that reads: “The country is filled with the words of all the people hoping to build an era of peace together”.

“But even now, we cherish in our hearts the quiet but resolute words that came to us from throughout the land, saying, we will build a peaceful Japan together with the Imperial Household,” he said.

The 85-year-old emperor plans to abdicate on April 30. He ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne on Jan 7, 1989, following the death of his father Emperor Hirohito, in whose name Japan waged the World War II.

“Our country has cultivated its own culture as an island nation,” he said at the ceremony in Tokyo, adding that “as the world has been globalized, I think we are now required to be more open to the outside, establish our own position with wisdom and build relations with other countries sincerely”.

Akihito’s Heisei era will come to an end when he abdicates. His elder son, 59-year-old Crown Prince Naruhito, who promised to “build on his parents’ legacy by being close to the people”, will assume the throne on May 1.

Naruhito is married to former diplomat Masako, 55, and they have one daughter, Princess Aiko, 17.

Unlike emperors before him, who were treated as semi-divine, Akihito embraced the modern role as a symbol of the state usually seen as devoted to duties, open to new ideas and down-to-earth.

He and Michiko traveled across Japan to meet with victims of natural disasters and visit places affected by war. He has officially visited 35 countries over the past 30 years, which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said “deepened Japan’s friendship with other nations”.