Nicolas Baverez – Japan: prohibited games

Pierre de Coubertin underlined that “sport will seek fear in order to dominate it, fatigue in order to triumph over it, difficulty in overcoming it”. The formula has never seemed more accurate eight weeks before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, which for the time being entirely under the sign of fear, fatigue and difficulty.

In 1964, the Games held in Tokyo symbolized the modernization of Japan and its reintegration into the community of nations. In 2020, nearly ten years after the terrible disaster of Fukushima, they were to embody the reconstruction of the country, testifying both to the end of the disaster, to its mastery of digital technologies and to the appeasement of geopolitical tensions in Asia. Pacific – become the most prosperous but also the most dangerous region in the world. That was without counting the Covid-19 epidemic.

Under the forced optimism of Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, whose only concern is to cash the television rights that will allow his organization to bail out, a Games will never have been held in such conditions – including in the years 1930 or at the heart of the Cold War. The Tokyo Games will be held well from July 23 to August 8. But outside the Olympic spirit.

Late on vaccination

Supposed to symbolize the common vocation of humanity and brotherhood, the Tokyo Games will for the first time in history ban the arrival of foreign spectators, the question of the presence of the Japanese public not yet being decided. The 11,000 or so athletes from 206 countries will not be able to acclimatize and train in the heat and humidity of Japan before the events. They will have to file strict travel plans, undergo daily PCR tests and be prohibited from coming into contact with Japanese people on pain of deportation. At the same time, 81% of Japanese people are now opposed to holding the Olympics, as Tokyo is under a state of emergency for the third time in just over a year.

In fact, the health situation in Japan, which appeared to be under control with 711,000 cases of Covid and less than 12,500 deaths for 126 million inhabitants, is today threatened by the fourth wave of the epidemic affecting Asia, precipitated by the Indian variant, more contagious and dangerous. If Japan handled the first waves well thanks to the rapid closure of its borders and the collective discipline of its population, it is now far behind on vaccination. Only 5.5 million Japanese have received a first dose, 4.37% of a population of 36 million people over 65 years of age. At best, a third of Japanese will be vaccinated in October, postponing the reopening of the country and hampering the recovery, which will peak at around 4% in 2021.

The slowness of vaccination in Japan is explained by the priority given in the management of the epidemic to the closure of the country, by the mistrust of the Japanese towards vaccines after accidents in the treatment of hepatitis B as well as flaws in public health: insufficient use of digitization; straitjacket of bureaucracy, which results in interminable delays in approval; weight of corporatism defending the monopoly on vaccination from which doctors and nurses benefit.

A very high risk event

The Tokyo Games, which were to turn the page on the Fukushima disaster and serve as a showcase for 21st century Japan, therefore present themselves as a very high-risk event. And this all the more so since legislative elections will have to be organized before the end of the year 2021, decisive elections to confirm the leadership of Yoshihide Suga, technocrat who became Prime Minister last September following the resignation, for reasons of health, from his mentor, Shinzo Abe. In reality, these distorted Games offer a fairly faithful image of Japan, which does not refer to the peace and harmony sought by the Reiwa era of Emperor Naruhito but to the rise of uncertainties and headwinds.

The collapse of demography coupled with the refusal of immigration, which implies a fall of the population to 90 million in 2060 and to 60 million in 2100, locks Japan in deflation and the infernal pincers of the stagnation of the growth and public over-indebtedness. The conservatism of society and the weight of traditions hamper innovation and are incompatible with rapid change. Growing concern over Xi Jinping’s expansionism in China – which is increasing maritime incursions around the Senkaku Islands – goes hand in hand with growing economic dependence on Beijing, which has absorbed 24% of Japanese exports in 2020, up from 20% at the start of the 2010s. Faced with Chinese imperialism and North Korea’s nuclear provocations, Japan’s security depends more than ever on the alliance with the United States , whose fragility the presidency of Donald Trump has underlined.

Sport has one thing in common with the economy and geopolitics of the 21st century: victory goes to the one who takes the most risk, who reacts the fastest and the strongest. This is why the Tokyo Games of 2021 could, unlike those of 1964, bear witness not to Japan’s adaptation to the upheavals of the world, but to its inability to resolve the dilemma represented by the new cold war between states. -United and China.