It’s gold, gold, gold for Japan and its uplifting Games

Emma McKeon celebrates with Cate Campbell of Team Australia after winning the gold medal and breaking the Olympic record in the Women’s 50m Freestyle. Picture: Getty

Two months ago The Economist castigated Japan for its obduracy – one dictionary definition, “stubborn persistence in wrongdoing” – for deciding to press ahead with hosting the Olympic Games.

Many other analysts and experts, including diverse academics in Australia and elsewhere, published similarly scornful comments. Japan, it was ponderously and gloomily asserted as the Games’ opening came ever closer, was being irresponsible since it was in the middle of a Covid outbreak that could envelope all involved like a tsunami of infection if the event went ahead.

This week, Japan is 138th on the list of countries with the most Covid-related deaths per million despite its high proportion of elderly citizens, while Australia – doing even better – is 167th.

Japan’s government decided against enforcing strict lockdowns or shutting its borders as the pandemic surged last year. Instead, it leaned heavily on the country’s strong tradition of compliance. For many years most people, for instance, have worn masks in public as soon as they catch a sniffle.

The world now owes Japan a debt of gratitude for its persistence in the face of so many naysayers and following the bitter disappointment of the postponement a year earlier.

Great Australian swimmer Cate Campbell said soon after winning a gold medal: “I hope we’ve managed to lift your spirits.” Indeed, Australia’s magnificent athletes certainly have done that. And so has Japan. It has staged a terrific Olympic Games that have injected a degree of hope into the international arena that we have not seen since the pandemic emerged. Spirits have been lifted, not only in Australia but also around the world.

While the International Olympic Committee formally has the last word about whether, when and where the Games are performed, the host nation’s preparedness and desire to go ahead are clearly the core factors. The government led by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga crucially held its nerve.

Since its failed attempt to subjugate the region and create a huge empire in World War II, Japan has transformed itself into something of a model global citizen, a path celebrated in its staging of the 1964 Olympics. Today it is the fourth largest international aid donor, with the world’s 11th highest population, albeit with the third biggest economy.

Too many of its elite cling to a revisionist take on its history – though that is also true of its neighbours, including the People’s Republic of China. And Tokyo had lost the Games for good on an earlier occasion, scheduled for 1940, for obvious reasons very much of its own making in that case.

Some believed that logistics challenges in the Covid era, the lack of audiences diminishing a sense of occasion and a disinclination of star athletes to incur risk by participating would sink this Games and even could undermine the modern Olympic movement after 125 years.

The opposite has happened. This Games has enhanced the Olympic spirit, with its palpable sense of mutual respect and friendship among the competitors – perhaps heightened by their common experience of facing Covid challenges en route to Tokyo. They have been meticulously organised.

And the great army of volunteers needed to run such diverse events efficiently has risen to the challenge, reflecting Japan’s lively civil society and showcasing one of the strengths of liberal democracies – a system of governance facing serious rivalry from China’s Leninist alternative.

The large protests that marked – but didn’t disrupt the serenity of – the opening of the Games comprise a further inextricable element of the modern Japanese way of life.

The next Olympics follow surprisingly swiftly – the Winter Games in and around Beijing next February. China, having suppressed Covid previously through a strikingly contrasting strategy to Japan’s – severe lockdowns and border closures – now is suffering from a wave of Delta variant cases, like most other countries.

The world will look different in six months, but it will be intriguing to observe whether Beijing’s tough suppression strategy – not only for Covid but also more generally for China’s residents – will be suspended, especially for athletes, officials and covering media, during the Winter Games.

The IOC has claimed it has received assurances from Beijing on rights, media freedom and internet restrictions during the event.

The 2008 Summer Games held in Beijing were certainly efficiently managed, and if next February’s Olympics is also well run while similarly lacking public engagement and spontaneity – as required in Xi Jinping’s New Era that privileges control and surveillance – then that can be blamed on Covid requirements.

Bring on the blissful Brisbane Games of 2032. But, meantime, spare a salute for Tokyo.

Rowan Callick is an Industry Fellow at Griffith University’s Asia Institute.