World

Japan Raises Its Rising Sun

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 9, 1999 / 10:14 AM EDT / CBS

Ending more than forty years without a flag or a national anthem, JapanÂ's parliament on Monday legalized unofficial but widely recognized Rising Sun flag and Â"KimigayoÂ" anthem despite widespread misgivings about their association with the former empireÂ's militaristic past.

The bill will come into force on Friday, when the current parliamentary session ends.

CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen reports that the new law was enacted despite protesters who braved TokyoÂ's blazing heat and watchful police in the hope that the whole idea would be scratched.

To the protesters, the flag and anthem celebrate JapanÂ's past, which they donÂ't want to see ever again Â– an honor to the emperorÂ's system that resulted in many deaths.

The ruling coalition lacks a majority in the upper chamber but the bill garnered support from the friendly opposition New Komeito party, now leaning towards joining the governing bloc, as well as from members of the main opposition Democratic Party.

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said in a statement: Â"Both 'Kimigayo' and the 'Hinomaru' flag have a long history and have already been widely accepted by the people, but I feel it is meaningful to have a legal basis for this as we head into the 21st century.Â"

While the Hinomaru, a red disc in the center of a white field, has been used since the early 1600s mainly to identify merchant and official ships, it became widely seen as a symbol of Japanese militarism during the country's World War Two expansion into Asia.

Perhaps even more controversial is the anthem Kimigayo, or Â"His Majesty's Reign,Â" which praises the emperor and expresses the hope that his rule will last forever.

Opinion polls have shown a majority of the public favors granting legal status to both, and supporters of the move say doing so is vital to creating a sense of Japan's modern identity seen lacking in the postwar period.

The anthem, however, remains more controversial than the flag because of its focus on the emperor, defined by the constitution as Â"a symbol of the state and of the unity of the people,Â" rather than the deity of wartime Japan.

Meanwhile, communist North Korea, whose territory was once ravaged by a Japanese occupation, protested the legalization and called it part of Â"preparations for re-invasionÂ" of the Korean peninsula.