Heisei time

Heisei ( Japanese 平成 , ligature : ㍻ ) is the Nengō (government motto ) of the retired Tennō Akihito and refers to the period from January 8, 1989 to April 30, 2019, which is known as the Heisei period ( 平成時代 , Heisei-jidai ) . The Heisei period was preceded by the Shōwa period . On May 1, 2019, it was replaced by the Reiwa period .

etymology

The term Heisei was borrowed from the two classic Chinese historical works Shiji and Shujing . In Shiji , in a section praising the mythical emperor Shun , there is the sentence 內平外成 / 内平外成 , nèi píng wài chéng (Japanese naihei gaisei , Kanbun : 内平かに外成る , uchi tairaka ni soto naru ) meaning “peace within works outwards” or “peace within, reconciliation outwards” and in Shujing the phrase 地平天成 , dì píng tiān chéng (Kanbun: 地平かに天成る , chi tairaka ni ten naru ) meaning "The land is peaceful and the sky is clear". Heisei as a combination of both can therefore be understood as “peace inside and outside, in heaven and on earth” or “peace everywhere” for short.

Important events

The Heisei period is shaped by the Japanese economic crisis after the collapse of the so-called bubble economy ( Ushinawareta Nijūnen ). Significant disasters of the Heisei period were the great Hanshin earthquake near Kobe on January 17, 1995, -Gmu Shinrikyō's sarin poison gas attack on the Tōkyō subway on March 20, 1995 and the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, including the nuclear disaster of Fukushima on March 11, 2011. These events, the economic crisis as well as political and social upheavals tore Japanese society from its previous feeling of relative security, because the country had not experienced anything comparable since the end of the Second World War .

There were also increasing conflicts with its neighbors China , due to its economic rise and the lack of processing of Japanese war crimes in World War II (see Yasukuni Shrine ), South Korea (see Liancourt rocks and comfort women ), and North Korea due to their nuclear weapons . Japan is also in conflict with both China over the Senkaku archipelago , which has already been underlaid by a military threat from all sides. Under the impact of these threats, there was a change in the previous pacifist foreign and defense policy of Japan after the country under Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi already soldiers of the Self-Defense Forces alongside the United States in Iraq had sent. The public in Japan is also debating a relaxation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution . In March 2016, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe passed a law on collective self- defense that expanded the scope of action for the self-defense forces to the extent that they were now allowed to defend allied bases to rescue Japanese citizens.

After his death, Akihito himself will also be called Heisei according to Japanese custom .

Political events

1993: Morihiro Hosokawa becomes the first non-LDP prime minister since 1955

1994: Reform of the Japanese electoral law

2005: Parliament resolution on post-privatization

2009: Yukio Hatoyama becomes the first non-LDP prime minister since 1955, whose party is the largest parliamentary group

Cultural and sporting events

1995: Poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway by the new religious group Ōmu Shinrikyō
1998: Olympic Winter Games in Nagano
2002: Soccer World Cup in South Korea and Japan
2005: World Exhibition Expo 2005 in Aichi
2012: Completion of the Tokyo Skytree

Natural disasters

Conversion to the Gregorian calendar

Heisei year	1	2	3	4th	5	10	15th	20th	25th	26th	27	28	29	30th	31
Gregorian calendar	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1998	2003	2008	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019

Web links

Commons : Heisei time - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ 「明治」の由来は何ですか? . Meiji Shrine , accessed May 3, 2019 (Japanese).

[1] 「明治」の由来は何ですか? . Meiji Shrine , accessed May 3, 2019 (Japanese).