JAPAN: Japan's imperial family appears to have been rescued from a looming succession crisis by divine intervention with the surprise announcement that Princess Kiko is pregnant with her third child.
The news that the 39-year-old daughter-in-law of Emperor Hirohito could be carrying the first male heir since 1965 comes amid a bitter debate about whether a woman should be allowed to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne.
The pregnancy announcement was greeted yesterday with relief and applause in the Diet (parliament), which is gearing up to revise the Imperial Household Law. The law currently allows only male succession.
Several prominent members of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's party are among 170 politicians who recently signed a petition opposing a new succession Bill that some now say should be scrapped.
"It would be rude to carry on now," said Hakubun Shimomura, one of a group of Diet members against revision.
But Mr Koizumi said the revision would proceed. "We don't know if it is a boy or girl," he was quoted as telling Japanese reporters, adding that for the sake of "stability" the country could "no longer put the issue [ of succession] off".
The attempt to change the 1947 law was initiated by the failure of the emperor's son, Prince Naruhito, and his wife, Princess Masako, who is suffering from depression, to produce a boy. The revision would allow their four-year-old daughter, Aiko, to eventually become empress.
But the Bill is opposed by a growing number of conservatives who say it would break the bloodline of the world's oldest continuous monarchy, which claims to date back 600 years before Christ.
Former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma voiced conservative concerns last week when he warned what might happen when Aiko begins dating.
"If Aiko becomes empress, and gets involved with and marries a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad, their child may be the emperor. We should never let that happen," he said.
Until recently the public overwhelmingly backed the move to allow an empress, but recent polls taken after the conservative backlash show a shift in opinion. The most recent suggests 63 per cent in favour.
Princess Kiko already has two daughters with Prince Akishino. If she gives birth to a boy in September, he will be third in line to the throne after his uncle, Prince Naruhito, and his father.
Such a timely intervention is likely to produce speculation that the birth was artificially assisted. Rumours have persisted for years that Princess Aiko's birth was the result of artificial insemination.
With so much at stake, media interest in the princess will be intense in the lead-up to the birth of the new baby, which the couple are believed to have prayed for during the traditional visit to a Shinto shrine during the new year holidays.
The prince and princess both referred in new year poetry readings to the stork, which traditionally heralds the arrival of a new baby. There was no word yesterday on whether the palace believed their prayers had been answered.