The Economist - USA (2021-07-17)

The Economist July 17th 2021 33

Asia

TheTokyoOlympics

Rings on the ropes

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louds gatheredover  Komazawa  sta­

dium in Tokyo as the Olympic torch ar­

rived on July 9th. Because of the pandemic,

the traditional public relay was replaced by

a  small  ceremony  behind  the  stadium’s

closed doors. Protesters outside held signs

that  read  “Protect  lives  not  the  Olympics”

and  “Extinguish  the  Olympic  torch”.  As

Kyogoku  Noriko,  a  civil  servant,  put  it,

“Now  is  not  the  time  for  a  festival.”  More

enthusiastic onlookers lined a nearby foot­

bridge,  hoping  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the

flame  through  the  stadium’s  rafters.  For

Honma Taka, an office worker, the torch of­

fered “a bit of light within the darkness”.

Mr Honma longingly recalled a brighter

day  in  the  same  park  eight  years  earlier,

when he joined thousands of others to cel­

ebrate  as  Tokyo  won  the  right  to  host  the

games. Abe Shinzo, Japan’s prime minister

at  the  time,  said  he  was  happier  than  he

had been when he became prime minister.

Mr  Abe  saw  the  Olympics  as  a  chance  to

lend  credence  to  his  bullish  catchphrase:

“Japan is back”. He hoped the games would

help the country snap out of its gloom after

decades  of  economic  stagnation,  demo­

graphic decline and devastating natural di­

sasters. The games, says Taniguchi Tomo­

hiko, a special adviser to Mr Abe, were seen

as  a  source  of  “a  commodity  that  was  in

scarce supply: hope for the future”.

The  grand  designs  had  a  powerful  pre­

cedent in the previous Tokyo Olympics, in

1964.  Just  two  decades  after  defeat  in  the
      second world war, those games came to en­
      capsulate both Japan’s rise from the ashes
      and its re­entry into the global community.
      Tokyo, which had been reduced to cinders
      by American firebombing, was smartened
      up. New roads and rail lines, including the
      first shinkansen, or bullet train, were built.

“There  was  a  feeling  in  the  1960s  that

everyday life was becoming richer: today is

better  than  yesterday,  and  tomorrow  will

be better than today—and the Olympics be­

came  a  symbol  of  this,”  says  Togo  Kazu­

hiko, a former ambassador who was a stu­

dent at the time. The excitement left a last­

ing impression on a generation, including

Mr Abe, who invoked his childhood memo­

ries  of  1964  when  Tokyo  won  the  bid  for

this year’s games.

If  not  for  the  pandemic,  excitement

may well have materialised again. The cur­

rent  Tokyo  Olympics  has  had  its  share  of

controversies,  from  an  over­budget  stadi­

um to rank sexism from the (now departed)

head  of  the  organising  committee.  Nor

would a sporting event alone be enough to

resolve  Japan’s  problems.  But  the  games

were  shaping  up  to  be  a  source  of  pride.

Tens  of  thousands  of  young  Japanese  had

signed  up  to  volunteer.  Japan  planned  to

welcome  40m  foreigners  in  2020,  when

the  games  were  originally  scheduled.

Tourists would have found an impeccably

clean,  safe,  well­run  metropolis.  Akita

Hiroyuki,  a  commentator  for  Nikkei,  a

Japanese  daily,  reckons  that  the  Olympics

could  have  been  a  “white  ship”  that  cata­

lysed  the  country  to  “wake  up  and  open

up”.  (The  Americans  who  forced  Japan  to

open  to  the  world  in  the  19th  century  ar­

rived in “Black Ships”.)

Instead, the games will be held without

fans, foreign or domestic, in a city under a

TOKYO

The 2020 games will be memorable—but not in the way Japan hoped

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