Why is Yoshihide Suga so firmly advancing the Tokyo Olympics

At the lowest point in May, more than 80% of the Japanese public wanted to cancel or postpone the upcoming Olympics, almost no one in the country was vaccinated, and medical experts lined up to call the Olympics an unbearable Covid-19 risk.

According to government and organizing committee officials, despite the huge pressure on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Japan has not come close to canceling the Olympics. Instead, they tried to speed up the time and create a sense of inevitable in the game.

Analysts said that this determination to move forward has nothing to do with financial considerations, but reflects a mixture of electoral politics, superiority to China, and actual calculations by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

More and more signs show that Yoshihide Suga’s political judgment is correct. According to NHK’s regular polls, the percentage of the Japanese public who wish to cancel the game has dropped to 31%, and nearly two-thirds said that the game should continue in an appropriate manner. Restrictions on the audience.

A former official of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and political analyst Atsuo Ito said: “People are basically tired of the Olympics being held.” “If it happens, so be it.”

For Suga Yoshihide, a simple fact governs the calculation of the Olympics: It has been four years since the last general election in Japan, and he must call another general election before October 22. Survive for him As the leader of the party, the Liberal Democratic Party must perform well in this election.

Many of his allies believe that their best bet is a successful game. “Yoshihide Suga and those around him believe that if the Olympics are held, then the Olympic fever will prevail,” said Toshikawa Kaohsiung, editor of Political Communications Tokyo Insider. “If Japan has a medal craze, then they will hope to hold elections as soon as possible.”

With the Paralympic Games closing on September 5, Suga hopes to make it public almost immediately thereafter, and to bring the Olympic feel-good factor to another four-year period in power.

Ito said that some bureaucratic advisers of Suga Yoshihide regarded hosting the Olympics as an election risk, because the surge in coronavirus infections that can be traced back to the Olympics could turn into a destructive scandal.

However, the advice of epidemiologists suggests that just hosting the Olympics is not that dangerous, especially since 80% of people who travel to Japan will be vaccinated.This Hand danger It stems from the increase in domestic travel and social contacts, but the organizers of Tokyo 2020 hope to control this by limiting the number of spectators in the venues.

Cancellation will increase its own political risk. If Yoshihide Suga is seen as a decisive leader to protect the country, he may get a boost in the short term, but then he will have to participate as a person who gave up the Olympics after years of hard work and trillions of yen in public funds. election.

Other political factors are conducive to moving forward. The Tokyo Olympics are the core of the legacy of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Yoshihide Suga. Abe is still the power broker of the Liberal Democratic Party, and Yoshihide Suga needs his support.

Japanese leaders are also keenly aware Beijing will host the Winter Olympics Early 2022. Only eight months after Japan’s shameful defeat, the Victory Games in China is a prospect that few Liberal Democratic Party politicians want to consider.

Suga has been betting for months that sentiment will change when voters receive their Covid vaccinations, and after long delays, Japan’s rollout is finally gathering pace. The country provides more than 600,000 vaccines every day, and plans to reach 1 million this month. By the start of the competition, approximately 30% to 40% of countries will have at least one dose.

A common theory in Japan is that the country is being forced by the International Olympic Committee to host the Olympics. “We have fallen into a situation where we can’t even stop,” Yamaguchi Kaori saysThis month, former Judo champion and executive member of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

But lawyers said that the influence of the International Olympic Committee is limited, because Japan’s economic losses caused by the cancellation are relatively small. “Most of the money invested by Japan has been spent on infrastructure, hotels, Olympic villages, etc.,” said Irwin Kishner, a sports lawyer at the Feinstein Herrick law firm in New York.

Following the postponement last year, Japan no longer has too much expectations for the revenue of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. If it chooses to limit the number of spectators and Refund sales.

On the other hand, the International Olympic Committee can still get all the income from its broadcast rights and direct sponsors, which explains its strong insistence on the “end of the world” that the Olympics must continue, even if Tokyo is still in a Covid emergency state.

Although the organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics do not have the right to cancel the contract, if Japan just closes the border and prevents the Olympics from being held, the IOC will have little recourse.

“How will the IOC track down the Japanese government?” asked Nick White, a sports lawyer at Charles Russell Speechlys in London. “Even if a way to prosecute them is found, I think any court of sound mind will say that the government has the right to impose restrictions on public health grounds.”

Fortunately for the International Olympic Committee, the interests of the Japanese Prime Minister are aligned with its own interests. Unless the coronavirus situation deteriorates significantly in the next few weeks, the Olympic flame will be ignited in Tokyo on July 23.