what would have happened if the emperor was kicked out after WWII?

[Bones]

The only thing holding up the earlier surrender of Japan was their concern that the Emperor be protected and the US was adamant that the surrender be "unconditional" however they did finally say that the fate of the emperor would be in the hands of the Japanese. Because of that, if they had removed Hirohito, I think the Japanese, with justification, would have taken it as a betrayal and would have fought the US occupation tooth and nail which would have meant a terrible death toll for everyone.

Personally, I even have a problem with the US insisting that the Emperor renounce his divinity. Regardless of the circumstances it does not seem right for one country to forcefully change the religion of another country; which seems to be basically what happened. I have heard that Japan is largely non-religious today and I have sometimes wondered if their previous belief-system being so abruptly upset might have had something to do with this.

And I also agree too (sadly) that the US has shown a great deal of prejudice against monarchies in foreign policy over many years. It was evident in the overthrow of the Queen of Hawaii, both Mexican Emperors, rigging the overthrow of the last Vietnamese Emperor, demanding the removal of the Kaiser to make peace with Germany and when the East European countries were considering the issue in the aftermath of their restored independence I remember Clinton's Secretary of State (I think talking about Romania or Bulgaria) saying, "we don't do kings" and effectively killing the debate. The US (well, President Carter anyway) also refused to help the Shah of Iran who had been our ally which led to his overthrow. Anyway, I won't go on, if I've strayed off on an inappropriate rant I do apologize.

[Marquesa d Yolombó]

Well, I read once that (in The Times, but I don't have the link), when the Persian Shah was kicked out of his throne, Emperor Akihito was so scared that he learned to type, so he could "work as a typist", as he said. This mean that the Emperor wouldn't have left Japan, but get integrated in the Japanese society, as families from nobility have done since the postwar.

[caster51]

Japanese emperor has never had an interst's conflict　against ppls like western kings
Tenno has never had a power from ancient.

[Mermaid1962]

Japan is still officially Shinto. The Emperor is still the High Priest of that religion and does rituals and offers prayers on behalf of the nation.

Originally Posted by Bones

Personally, I even have a problem with the US insisting that the Emperor renounce his divinity. Regardless of the circumstances it does not seem right for one country to forcefully change the religion of another country; which seems to be basically what happened. I have heard that Japan is largely non-religious today and I have sometimes wondered if their previous belief-system being so abruptly upset might have had something to do with this.

[COUNTESS]

Nothing much, I believe. Times evolve and who would have continued to believe that he was a god? Too much easy info now. General MacArthur was smart in leaving him as a titular head. It did no harm. Bones, your lack of correct information on some of the other things is great. The Kaiser was not dethroned by the U.S. alone. It was the wish if the victorious powers. The emperors of Mexico were puppets to European interests. As for the Shah, it was a political hassle not because he was a monarch, but because of political situations.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by Mermaid1962

Japan is still officially Shinto. The Emperor is still the High Priest of that religion and does rituals and offers prayers on behalf of the nation.

Japan is not "officially" anything. Shintoism still exists of course in its earlier form but "State Shinto" was was the official religion before WW2 was abolished by order of the US occupation forces. I know the Emperor still performs Shinto ceremonies on certain occasions but he is no longer considered divine nor is that an indication of Japan having an official state religion. King Juan Carlos is Catholic but Catholicism is not the official state religion of Spain.

Originally Posted by COUNTESS

Nothing much, I believe. Times evolve and who would have continued to believe that he was a god? Too much easy info now. General MacArthur was smart in leaving him as a titular head. It did no harm. Bones, your lack of correct information on some of the other things is great. The Kaiser was not dethroned by the U.S. alone. It was the wish if the victorious powers. The emperors of Mexico were puppets to European interests. As for the Shah, it was a political hassle not because he was a monarch, but because of political situations.

Por favor, double check wikipedia or something before being critical of others. Of course the US was not alone but the US did make the removal of the Kaiser a condition of ending the war -that is a fact. Many in the US also wanted the Kaiser executed as a war criminal but the Dutch Queen showed better judgement and would not give him up. Even King George V intervened to stop that issue.

Please to tell me which foreign power the first Mexican Emperor was a puppet of? He had no foreign troops backing him, in fact it was he who finally succeeded in getting the Spanish troops out of the country. Whose puppet was he (I'm talking about Iturbide not Maximilian) please explain? Even Emperor Maximilian was hardly a puppet. He was constantly at odds with the French because he would not simply bend to their will. To the extent that he was he was no more a European puppet than Juarez was a puppet of US interests. He sold out considerable tracts of Mexican sovereignty to the US in return for their support, his forces were clothed, armed and equipped by the US and thousands of US troops fought on his behalf. As for the Shah of Iran, you can say it was this, that or the other but he was a monarch and he was basically sold out by the US which refused him the support he needed and kept telling him to take no action when things could have been stopped. Read some of Empress Farah's writings, she makes it clear that had President Carter kept faith with her husband the Ayatollah would never have taken over.

And also, I am not saying the Japanese Emperor should still be considered a god, all I was trying to say was that whether the Japanese believe him to be a god or not should be their decision and not that of any other foreign power. No foreign power should be able to tell any country who or what they can consider a god.

[COUNTESS]

All I said is that the U.S. did not act alone against the Kaiser. Secondly, Iturbide in his Plan of Iguala wanted Mexico to be autonomous, but ruled by a member of the Bourbon family and still under the authority of Spain. And Maximaillian was a French puppet, mostly.

As for the Shah, do you think that Farah's account is accurate or biased. That was her husband and she loved him. He was a liability, but in 1979 President Carter allowed him to get treatment in New York. The Iranians demanded we turn him over and we didn't and so they took 52 American Hostages and held them, in miserable conditions, for 444 days.

As for whether the we should have had Hirohito renounce his divinity, it is just talk. He was never divine. Those who wished to think of him as divine could have still done so. It was a nonsensical belief, but, as you say, their right to believe it. It they wished to, they still could. So, perhaps, we liberated them.

[Bones]

The Plan of Iguala called for independence, not continued Spanish rule. If that there the case there would have been no point to it. He did at first want to remain under the Spanish crown but the country would have been no less independent that Canada or Australia is today. But that is beside the point; that didn't happen. Iturbide became Emperor and he was nobody's puppet, he was not supported by any European powers and the King of Spain was adamantly opposed to the whole enterprise. If Maximilian was a French puppet why didn't he run away when the French left? Why didn't he turn over Sonora when the French wanted it? Why did he adopt a Mexican as his heir and not a French prince or aristocrat?

What little Carter did for the Shah after his overthrow is neither here nor there. Yes I'm sure the Empress is biased but don't you think American accounts might be too? The fact remains that while he was still in power he asked for American help to deal with the Islamic fundamentalists and it was refused and when he wanted to take action against them the US told him not to and promised to work something out.

You say the Japanese Emperor was never divine, fine, I don't think so either but that is not your call or my call to make. Frankly it seems a little insulting imho. I wouldn't like someone to say that about Jesus even though they have every right to believe as they choose. And it is not so simple as the Japanese choosing what they want to believe. The US forced Hirohito to publically renounce his divinity -which would make it rather hard for any Japanese traditionalists to go in believing in him in that way. Call it liberation if you like, if you don't believe in State Shinto it certainly would be, but I don't think it was any business of the USA. If a foreign power invaded my country and said Christianity was banned they might think they liberating the people but that still wouldn't make it right.

[Al_bina]

It is rather entertaining to read a discussion. Japan lost the World War II. It was victors, who wrote the history, established rules, and carried out punishments. Americans attempted to modify Emperor Hirohitos's image and role to suit their immediate agenda. I dare to say that Americans did not have many viable options to replace the Emperor with because he was a more spiritual nucleus that held the nation together and a personification of stability in the trying times. Japan proved capable of reinventing itself and claiming far more important victories in the socio-economic sphere in the long run.

[caster51]

ppl stopped to fighting because tenno said to stop.
in the chinese continental, some of Imperial family were sent with Emperor's massages to stop.
in Sakhalin, The tragedy occurred for that because Epmperor said to surrender.
History News Network
anyway It might be the same situation as Iraq if there was no emperor.
Shumshu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BTW、Who could kick out hirohito?
Allied Forces did ugly propagandas to Japanese citizen to abolish Tenno system. however no one was moved..
if someone did so, it would be called an enemy of the court..
nobody wants to be an enemy of the court, Choteki
It is the most disgrace for the Japanese.

[Prince of Chota]

I think it's safe to say that there was very bad blood between the Chinese and Japanese at the end of the war; the sentiment is still felt around China to this day. So it's rather difficult to imagine a situation where Japan would have been swept up in the wave of Maoism that swept the warlords out of mainland China, I doubt that the communists in China could have accomplished it. They had enough trouble getting all of the mainland under the same banner, let alone the massive Japanese population. And having lived in China for a time, I can't say that the Maoist form of communism is the worst government one could be stuck with.
I do think that people today don't understand how unifying a monarchy actually is. It's something I always heard from my grandparents' generation, who remember the war and how powerful the royal family (in our case George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon) were in maintaining national unity and morale.
We also should decide if we're talking about a general abolition of the Japanese monarchy, or physically removing the imperial family from the country (in which case they'd probably just be living in exile in Europe--maybe Belgium like the Korean Shin de Pyongsans?)
Yes, President Carter didn't do much for the Shah (is Carter little?), but I don't see how Maximilian of Habsburg (or Mexico if you recognize that) is relevant. The Mexican people and their elected government were hardly happy with the idea of a foreign-imposed monarch, even if he was supported by the ethnically-European (Criollo) aristocracy of the country. The scenario is completely different: the monarch in question isn't indigenous (Maximilian wasn't a Tlatoani or Caltzontzin as Hirohito was a Tenno), and the reason for his removal wasn't an invading foreign power (instead, the foreign support that was his powerbase had disappeared). For the sake of fairness, Maximilian wasn't the puppet that Napoleon III had hoped he'd be. But, unfortunately for him, Maximilian wasn't Mexican.
I agree completely with Bones about the issue of State Shinto. Every culture is entitled to its own beliefs, and one could easily make the argument that the concept of the "American Dream" is their own form of state religion. It isn't appropriate to say that Japan isn't a religious nation today, just that Japanese and other Eastern religions do not manifest themselves the same way that the Western religions do. My experience in East Asia is that these are in fact very religiously faithful cultures. However, there isn't the need that Westerners have to maintain ties and identify with one religion alone. Japanese often use Christianity for (western style) weddings, Buddhism for funerals, and Shintoism for the major markers of life (first day of school, birth of children, etc). The attempt by the United States to stomp out State Shintoism made sense at the time, but from some distance appears to conform to a larger trend of cultural misunderstanding and colonialist tendencies.