There are people, but only outside. And to protest. Inside the national stadium the athletes parade alone, without an audience in the stands. The inauguration of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games returns a merciless photograph of the ambitions that Japan placed in this global event. In 2013, when during the session of the International Olympic Committee in St. Petersburg it won the assignment of the Games, Japan saw in them the possibility of returning to the global stage. After the Fukushima disaster and the launch of China’s Belt and Road, Tokyo also had a goal and a prospect of success.
New wave of Covid on the Olympics, 60% of Japanese against the Games
Today everything is different. The demonstration was postponed for a year due to the pandemic, but in the meantime the health emergency has never ended. Indeed, in Japan it has, if anything, worsened. In recent months and weeks there have been new spikes in infections from Covid-19 which have meant that most citizens were opposed to the regular conduct of the event. In fact, over 60% of the Japanese would have preferred their cancellation. Not only. A large slice of the population believes that the government has not been, and still is not, able to effectively contain the pandemic emergency.
Japan, citizens against the government for the management of Covid
After an initial underestimation, complete with luxury dinners organized by Suga’s son last fall / winter, the government was forced to impose mini lockdowns and introduce a state of emergency, which will last until August. Many criticize Yoshihide Suga, the prime minister who succeeded Shinzo Abe last summer after the dean of Japanese politics had to resign for health reasons. The prime minister has failed to stop the new wave of infections and has not even managed to preserve the national economy, with GDP falling by 4.8% in 2020 and the outlook for 2021 proposing nothing more positive than a growth from the telephone area code.
Covid, over a hundred infections in the Olympic Village
All while the neighbors, especially China, have changed pace for some time. Beijing managed to grow by 2.3% already in 2020 and will raise the bar in 2021. A merciless confrontation for Japan, which now only hopes to bring the Olympic Games safely to their conclusion. Organizers and the government had reassured about the infallibility of the system designed for the Olympic Village. Here too, not everything is going as hoped: on the day of the inauguration of the Games, there are as many as 19 new infections linked in some way to the various Olympic delegations. Bringing the total cases related to the Olympics to 106. The Czech Republic team risks a real outbreak. Then there is a member of the Ugandan team who, despite the vaunted security system, managed to “escape” from the Olympic Village and lost track of him.
Health chaos in Japan
The great fear of the Japanese is that the Olympics risk turning into a mega mass outbreak, with the different active variants ready to make their entry into the Far Eastern country. Public opinion would have preferred a cancellation also due to some data on the general health situation of the country. According to research by the Japan Lung Cancer Society, for example, there are more than 8600 lung cancer patients left without adequate treatment since the beginning of the pandemic due to the restrictive measures applied for Covid.
Olympics, all the other problems: from Holocaust phrases to sexism
Not only. The chain of problems linked to the Games continues. A little more than 24 hours after the opening ceremony, the artistic director of the event, Kentaro Kobayashi, was forced to resign for some unhappy trips to the Holocaust about 20 years ago. It was not the only head to jump in recent months for gaffe, in other cases the organizers had been the protagonists of sexist phrases.
Tokyo 2020, the escape of sponsors (including Toyota)
The event became so unpopular that several brands canceled the scheduled broadcast of commercials during the event. The Japanese companies themselves have understood that linking their image to that of Games largely unwanted by the population is not strategic: Asahi, Panasonic, Fujitsu and NTT have withdrawn their commercials, so has Toyota, the automotive giant that has under contract about 200 athletes present at the Games.
The effects of Tokyo 2020 on the elections in Japan
Even Abe did not show up at the opening ceremony, testifying to the fact that even politically it doesn’t seem like a good deal to be portrayed alongside the five circles. Furthermore, there are rumors that the Abe current may give up Suga in view of the general elections in October. An appointment to which Suga thought he would arrive with the wind behind him and to which he risks arriving with shortness of breath. The satisfaction with him has fallen to around 35%, an all-time low. At the end of September, the Liberal Democratic Party, the one in power almost continuously in recent decades, will choose its own candidate. The absence of alternatives could reward Suga but the times of political continuity inaugurated by Abe (after long years of government crisis and premier changes) seem over.
Tokyo 2020 risks the hoax from Beijing 2022
With a final joke. For the first time in history, the Winter Olympics will take place less than a year after the summer ones. And guess who is there to pick up the baton, or rather the Olympic torch, from Tokyo? Just Beijing, Japan’s eternal Asian rival. Tokyo 2020, then 2021, first had to be the Games of the Japanese relaunch, then of the restart after Covid. Instead, those held in the rival capital could risk becoming so.