Heisei

For the Japanese Emperor in his reign through the Heisei period, see Akihito.

The Heisei era (Japanese: 平成, Hepburn: Heisei) refers to the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Akihito from 8 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the day after the death of the Emperor Hirohito, when his son, Akihito, acceded to the throne as the 125th Emperor. In accordance with Japanese customs, Hirohito was posthumously renamed "Emperor Shōwa" on 31 January 1989.

Thus, 1989 corresponds to Shōwa 64 until 7 January, and Heisei 1 (平成元年, Heisei gannen, gannen means "first year") from 8 January. The Heisei era ended on 30 April 2019 (Heisei 31), with the abdication of Akihito from the Chrysanthemum Throne. It was succeeded by the Reiwa era as Crown Prince Naruhito ascended the throne on 1 May midnight local time.

History and meaning

File:Keizo Obuchi cropped Keizo Obuchi 19890107.jpg

Keizō Obuchi attended the press conference to announce the new era name "Heisei". (7 January 1989)

On 7 January 1989, at 07:55 AM JST, the Grand Steward of Japan's Imperial Household Agency, Shōichi Fujimori, announced Emperor Hirohito's death at 6:33 AM JST, and revealed details about his cancer for the first time. Shortly after the death of the Emperor, Keizō Obuchi, then Chief Cabinet Secretary and later Prime Minister of Japan, announced the end of the Shōwa era, and heralded the new era name "Heisei" for the new Emperor, and explained its meaning.

According to Obuchi, the name "Heisei" was taken from two Chinese history and philosophy books, namely Records of the Grand Historian (史記; Shǐjì) and the Book of Documents (書経; Shūjīng). In the Records of the Grand Historian, a sentence appears in a section honoring the wise rule of the legendary Chinese Emperor Shun, reading "内平外成" (pinyin: nèi píng wài chéng; Kanbun: 内平かに外成る (Uchi tairaka ni soto naru)). In the Book of Documents, the sentence "地平天成" (pinyin: dì píng tiān chéng; Kanbun: 地平かに天成る (Chi tairaka ni ten naru, "peace on the heaven and earth")) appears. By combining both meanings, Heisei is intended to mean "peace everywhere". The Heisei era went into effect immediately upon the day after Emperor Akihito's succession to the throne on 7 January 1989.

In August 2016, Emperor Akihito gave a televised address to the nation, in which he expressed concern that his age would one day stop him from fulfilling his official duties. This was an implication of his wish to retire. The Japanese Diet passed a law in June 2017 to allow the throne to pass to Akihito's son, Naruhito. After meeting with members of the Imperial House Council, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced that 30 April 2019 would be the date set for Akihito's abdication. The Era of Naruhito's reign begins the next day.

Events

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko with family (2013)

1989 marked the culmination of one of the most rapid economic growth spurts in Japanese history. With a dramatically strengthened yen after the 1985 Plaza Accord, the Bank of Japan kept interest rates low, sparking an investment boom that drove Tokyo property values up 60 percent within that year. Shortly before New Year's Day, the Nikkei 225 reached its record high of 39,000. By 1992, it had fallen to 15,000, signifying the end of Japan's famed "bubble economy". Subsequently, Japan experienced the "Lost Decade", which actually consisted of more than ten years of price deflation and largely stagnant GDP as Japan's banks struggled to resolve their bad debts and companies in other sectors struggled to restructure.

The Recruit scandal of 1988 had already eroded public confidence in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had controlled the Japanese government for 38 years. In 1993, the LDP was ousted by a coalition led by Morihiro Hosokawa. However, the coalition collapsed as parties had gathered only to overthrow LDP, and lacked a unified position on almost every social issue. The LDP returned to the government in 1994, when it helped to elect Japan Socialist (later Social Democrat) Tomiichi Murayama as prime minister.

In 1995, there was a large 6.8 earthquake in Kobe, Hyōgo and sarin gas terrorist attacks were carried out on the Tokyo Metro by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo. Failure of the Japanese government to react to these events promptly led to the formation of non-government organisations which have been playing an increasingly important role in Japanese politics since.

During this era, Japan reemerged as a military power. In 1991, Japan pledged billions of U.S. dollars for the Gulf War, but constitutional arguments prevented a participation in actual war, leading Iran to criticise Japan for just pledging money and did not appreciate the way Japan co-operated in the Gulf War. However, after the war, Japanese minesweepers were sent as a part of the reconstruction effort. Following the Iraq War, in 2003, Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi's Cabinet approved a plan to send about 1,000 soldiers of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to help in Iraq's reconstruction, the biggest overseas troop deployment since World War II without the sanction of the UN.

On 23 October 2004, the Heisei 16 Niigata Prefecture Earthquakes rocked the Hokuriku region, killing 52 and injuring hundreds (see 2004 Chūetsu earthquake).

After an election defeat, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe resigned suddenly, and in Autumn 2007 Yasuo Fukuda became Prime Minister. Fukuda in turn resigned on September 2008 citing political failings, and Tarō Asō was selected by his party.

In August 2009, for the first time, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won 308 seats in the lower house election, which ended 50 years of political domination by the LDP. As a result of the election, Tarō Asō resigned as leader of the LDP, and Yukio Hatoyama, president of DPJ became Prime Minister on 16 September 2009. However, DPJ soon became mired in party financing scandals, particularly involving aides close to Ichirō Ozawa. Naoto Kan was chosen by the DPJ as the next Prime Minister, but he soon lost a working majority in the House of Councillors election, and the 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident caused increased tension between Japan and China. The 2009–2010 Toyota vehicle recalls also took place during this time.

In 2011, a sumo tournament was cancelled for the first time in 65 years over a match fixing scandal.

On 11 March 2011 at 2:46 p.m., Japan suffered from the strongest recorded earthquake in its history, affecting places in the three regions of Tohoku, Chubu and Kanto in the northeast of Honshu, including the Tokyo area. The quake's magnitude of 9.0 approached that of the severe 2004 megathrust earthquake and tsunami in Asia. A tsunami with waves of up to 10 meters (32.5 feet) flooded inland areas several kilometers from shore, causing a large number of considerable fires. The epicenter of the quake lay so close to coastal villages and towns that thousands could not flee in time, despite a tsunami warning system. At the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and three other nuclear power plants,serious problems occurred with the cooling systems, ultimately leading to the most serious case of radioactive contamination since the Chernobyl disaster (see Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster), as well as ongoing electric power shortages. Following the earthquake, for the first time, the Emperor addressed the nation in a pre-recorded television broadcast.

In August 2011, Kan resigned, and Yoshihiko Noda became Prime Minister. Later that year Olympus Corporation admitted major accounting irregularities. (See Tobashi scheme.) Noda pushed for Japan to consider joining the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, but was defeated in an election in 2012, being replaced by Shinzō Abe.

Abe sought to end deflation, but Japan entered recession again in 2014 largely due to a rise in sales tax to 8%. Abe called an election in December, and promised to delay further sales tax hikes to 2018. He won the election.

In September 2015, after much controversy and debate, the National Diet gave final approval to legislation expanding the Japanese military's role overseas.

In 2018, extraordinarily heavy rainfall in Western Japan led to many deaths in Hiroshima and Okayama. Also, an earthquake struck Hokkaido, killing 41 and causing a region-wide blackout.

Economy

Main article: Lost Decade (Japan)

The bubble economy having continued from around the end of the Shōwa era collapsed.

Top 10 by market capitalization

Rank	First year of Heisei (1989)	Last year of Heisei (2019)
1	NTT US$163.8 billion	Microsoft US$940.8 billion
2	Industrial Bank of Japan US$71.5 billion	Apple Inc. US$895.6 billion
3	The Sumitomo Bank US$69.5 billion	Amazon.com US$874.7 billion
4	Fuji Bank US$67.0 billion	Alphabet Inc. US$818.1 billion
5	Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank US$66.0 billion	Berkshire Hathaway US$493.7 billion
6	IBM US$64.6 billion	Facebook US$475.7 billion
7	Mitsubishi Bank US$59.2 billion	Alibaba Group US$472.9 billion
8	Ericsson US$54.9 billion	Tencent US$440.9 billion
9	Tokyo Electric Power Company US$54.4 billion	Johnson & Johnson US$372.2 billion
10	Royal Dutch Shell US$54.3 billion	ExxonMobil US$342.1 billion

Conversion table

File:JRpassHeisei18.png

A rail pass valid during the year Heisei 18 (which means 2006)

To convert any Gregorian calendar year between 1989 and 2019 to Japanese calendar year in Heisei era, 1989 needs to be subtracted from the year in question, then 1 added.

Heisei	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
AD	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Heisei	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
AD	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019

See also

• 1989 in Japan
• 1990s in Japan
• 2000s in Japan
• 2010s in Japan

Further reading

• Flath, David. The Japanese Economy (2nd ed. 2005) excerpt and text search
• Hanson, Marta E. The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Politics (2011) excerpt and text search
• Koo, Richard C. The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession (2nd ed. 2009) excerpt and text search
• Pascua, Arthur. Devastation in Japan: An Economic Analysis (2012) excerpt and text search, on 2011 Tsunami
• Schoppa, Leonard J. The Evolution of Japan's Party System: Politics and Policy in an Era of Institutional Change (University of Toronto Press; 2012) 232 pages; Argues that changes starting in the 1990s set the stage for the 2009 victory of the Democratic Party

Preceded by Shōwa (昭和)

Era of Japan Heisei 7 January 1989 – 30 April 2019

Succeeded by Reiwa