Emperor's health and lack of heirs worries Japan

NEWS that the Japanese Emperor Akihito has prostate cancer is sending nervous tremors through a nation that adores its imperial family but is rapidly running out of heirs.

Japan’s imperial household agency announced this weekend that "cancer cells have been discovered" in the emperor’s prostate gland. The emperor, who was 69 on 23 December, will go to hospital in mid-month for an operation.

The news came as a shock to most Japanese, particularly because of the hint that the cancer is more serious than the agency is saying. The operation was ordered after a "routine" check-up, but blood test results have been "worrying" for two or three years.

Akihito’s father, Hirohito, died of intestinal cancer in early 1989, aged 87. But it was not revealed until after his death that he was suffering from cancer, as the imperial agency did not want to alert the emperor to his ailment. Japanese doctors routinely do not tell their patients that they have cancer.

If the Chrysanthemum Throne incumbent is indeed seriously ill, Japan faces a crisis of succession sooner than its leaders feared.

A 1947 law bars women from reigning, but the last seven children born to the imperial family are girls. Only Crown Prince Naruhito, 41, who has a year-old daughter, Princess Aiko, remains to take over an imperial dynasty, the world’s oldest monarchy, which claims direct descent from the sun god Amaterasu, the supreme deity of the Shinto religion. The birth of Princess Aiko brought speculation that the law would be amended to allow an empress to rule - the first since Go-Sakuramachi, between 1762 and 1771. But the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has been reluctant to put the matter to a parliament dominated by the men of the ultra-conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

The emperor will not attend New Year celebrations in Tokyo but will make the traditional 2 January appearance on the palace balcony, officials said.

Aides are trying to play down the public’s fears, with the emperor’s physician stressing that his charge has been told of his condition "because he has a very good chance of a full recovery.

"The emperor is a scientist and took the notification calmly," the doctor, Ichiro Kanazawa, said. "The tumour is of a highly differentiated type that is relatively mild."