The Empire Strikes Back

Japan's Imperial Household, an institution usually notable for its icy reserve, has launched a furious attack on the Australian author of a book about Emperor Akihito and his family, denouncing it as irresponsible, distorted, coarse, audacious and contemptuous of the world's oldest hereditary monarchy.

In an unprecedented reaction to a book published overseas, both the Japanese ambassador to Canberra and the Grand Chamberlain to Emperor Akihito have written to its author, Ben Hills, and his publisher, Random House Australia. Speaking on behalf of the Japanese government, the ambassador, Hideaki Ueda, demands an apology for the book, 'Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne'.

"The book . . . contains irresponsible citations of rumours, press reports, comments of self-proclaimed insiders and other sources, which comprise unfounded and highly contemptuous descriptions of the appearances, activities and speeches of Their Majesties," he writes.

"[It also contains] disrespectful descriptions, distortions of facts, and judgmental assertions with audacious conjectures and coarse logic, pertaining to the birth of Her Imperial Highness Princess Aiko and the physical conditions of Her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess [Masako]."

The book is a biography of the former Masako Owada, who abandoned a promising career as a diplomat in Japan's foreign ministry, to marry Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993. At the time she was compared to Princess Diana, and many people hoped that she would bring change to the Imperial Household Agency, the deeply conservative government ministry which runs the lives of Akihito and his immediate family.

The opposite happened. As The Times was the fist to reveal in 2004, Masako has been treated for depression after suffering a nervous breakdown the year before. Few verifiable details of her illness are known outside the inner circle of courtiers and doctors.

But it seems likely that her condition has been worsened by the isolation in which she lives within her official residence, the Togu Detached Palace, and the intense pressure on her to produce a male heir.

After a miscarriage - and, according to palace observers, a course of fertility treatment - she gave birth to a daughter, Princess Aiko, at the age of 38 in 2001.

The Chrysanthemum Throne was facing a succession crisis until the Emperor's younger son, Prince Akishino, had a baby boy last year - Prince Hisahito, the first son born into the family in 40 years.

Few Japanese journalists, and no foreigners, have direct access to members of the Imperial Family; even the officials of the Imperial Household Agency, are notoriously secretive, excluding foreign journalists from briefings which are open only to a tame "reporters' club". Privately, its members admit that they would be expelled from the club if they wrote anything embarrassing to the Imperial Household Agency.

The further threat of violence from right wing ultra-nationalists ensures that nothing remotely critical ever makes in into mainstream press. As result, Mr Hills book, like all investigative journalism on the subject, relies to a large extent on unnamed or unidentified sources.

It is an unrelentingly negative account of the Imperial institution, which is portrayed as an absurdly anachronistic, sexist and bloodless institution, which elevates ritual, superstition and hierarchy over the happiness of the members of the family.

The marriage of Naruhito and Masako, he writes, is "a romance gone wrong, a young couple crushed by forces over which they have no control, a marriage which neither will survive undamaged, but from which neither seems capable of escaping".

The book contains no significant new revelations, but tells the story of the couple's courtship, wedding and the difficulties of their marriage, including Masako's depression.

It also recounts, as wild rumours, stories about the conception of Aiko, including speculation that the Crown Prince is infertile, and the child was conceived from the seed of his father or younger brother.

Ambassador Ueda gives no examples in his letter but it seems to be these "coarse", and wholly unsupported tales, that seem to have most upset the Imperial Household Agency.

The letter from Grand Chamberlain, Makoto Watanabe, rejects Mr Hills' contention that the public appearances of the Emperor and Empress are meaningless formalities, with a lengthy account of their work with the physically and mentally handicapped and with lepers.

"I completely reject their attempt to intimidate me and I completely reject that there is anything inaccurate or any lies in the book," Mr Hills said in Sydney. "The only person who deserves an apology is Princess Masako. They were bullying her. They caused her mental illness. The real reason is that they don't want it to be published in Japanese."

The Times