TOKYO — Stress has forced Japan’s emperor to step back from the public eye ahead of his 75th birthday today, with a palace official hinting that one of the causes might be his concerns about who will succeed him.
Emperor Akihito was to appear before well-wishers but will take the advice of doctors and lighten his official duties as he tries to recover from an irregular pulse and bleeding from his stomach — symptoms that doctors have attributed to “mental stress.”
Akihito chose to sit out a news conference he normally holds about a week before his Dec. 23 birthday, but a palace official said Monday that he will still appear before well-wishers today for his annual birthday greetings to wave to them three times from a palace veranda.
According to Japanese media reports, Shingo Haketa, head of the Imperial Household Agency, suggested that uncertainties over Akihito’s successor were bothering him.
Under a post-World War II law, only males are allowed to assume the throne. Akihito’s eldest son, Crown Prince Naruhito, is next in line but has no sons. When he and Crown Princess Masako had a daughter, a movement heated up to change the law to allow the girl to succeed her father.
That died down when the wife of Naruhito’s younger brother, Prince Akishino, had a baby boy two years ago.
