Imperial Conference
The Imperial Conference ( Japanese 御前 会議 , gozen kaigi ; lit. "Conference before the noble face") was an extra-constitutional meeting that was held by the Imperial Japanese Government in the presence of the Emperor and in which important foreign policy matters were dealt with.
History and background
After the Meiji Restoration , day-to-day political affairs in Japan were run by a cabinet chaired by a prime minister . The function of the emperor increasingly developed into a purely ceremonial head of state .
In the case of essential questions of foreign policy (in particular decisions about the beginning or end of a war ), however, extra-constitutional assemblies were called in order to make decisions of the cabinet, experienced politicians ( genrō ) and / or the military in connection with liaison meetings ( 連絡 会議 , renraku kaigi ) To obtain consent. In general, the emperor followed the negotiations as a listener; a rejection or even a veto to the already agreed decisions, which were presented to the Gozen Kaigi , was unthinkable.
In addition to the emperor himself, the following people usually took part in the imperial conferences:
- the prime minister
- the foreign minister
- the finance minister
- the chairman of the planning staff ( kikakuin-sōsai ), later a representative of the successor department in Gunju-shō (" Ministry of Munitions")
- the Minister of the Army
- the Minister of the Navy
- the Chief of the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army ( sambō-sōchō ) or his deputy ( sambō-jichō )
- the Chief of the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy ( gunreibu-sōchō ) or his deputy ( gunreibu-jichō )
Usually, immediately after each Imperial Conference, press releases were published in which the individual participants were named, what each participant was reported to be wearing and in which the unanimity of each decision was emphasized.
The first Imperial Conference was held just before the First Sino-Japanese War . Further conferences took place before the Russo-Japanese War , the entry into the First World War , the signing of the Tripartite Pact , several times during the Second Sino-Japanese War and on September 6, November 5 and December 1, 1941, before the attack on Pearl Harbor .
Only in the meeting on September 6, 1941 and in the last conference on August 9, 1945, at which the adoption of the Potsdam Declaration was discussed, did the Kaiser break his traditional silence. During the latter, he ended the deadlocked discussion with a personal vote on surrender under the condition that Kokutai was preserved ("with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler". with the understanding that the said declaration does not include any request that prejudices His Majesty's prerogatives as sovereign ruler ”).
literature
- Herbert B. Bix: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Harper Perennial, 2001, ISBN 0-06-093130-2
- IBC Dear, MRD Foot: The Oxford Companion to World War II Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-860446-7
- Bruce Lee: Marching Orders: The Untold Story Of World War II Crown Publishers, New York 1995, ISBN 0-517-57576-0
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan, Oxford University Press, 1991 p.7
- ↑ Dear, The Oxford Companion to World War II, pp. 416
- ↑ a b Bix: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan . P. 328
- ^ Lee, Marching Orders, The Untold Story of World War II, p.506
- ^ Peter Wetzler, Hirohito and War , 1998, p.39, 44
- ^ Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 516, 517
