{"id":16523,"date":"2021-03-23T11:08:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T18:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16523"},"modified":"2021-03-24T15:06:11","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T22:06:11","slug":"its-official-tokyo-2020-is-a-japanese-only-olympics-japanese-living-abroad-still-allowed-to-attend-not-foreigners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16523","title":{"rendered":"It’s official: Tokyo 2020 is a “Japanese Only” Olympics: Japanese living abroad still allowed to attend, not foreigners. (UPDATED: This probably includes Japanese who have given up their J citizenship.)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. I’ve been writing about Japan’s racialized attitude towards Covid for well over a year now (see here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>), which is, essentially: Japanese have been treated as less infectious than foreigners<\/a> traveling under the same conditions. This was seen most clearly in the racist border policies that have refused all foreigners re-entry<\/a> (including those with valid visas) but let in all Japanese.<\/p>\n

I suspected that this poor science would play a part in the Japan Olympic Committee’s recent decision to ban all “overseas spectators” (their wording: “kaigai no kankyaku<\/em><\/a>“) from attending the Olympics. And I suspected that this would only apply to foreigners.<\/p>\n

Well, the Japan Times reported today<\/a>\u00a0that this has precisely come to pass: “According to the Japanese organizing committee, foreign nationals made up roughly 10% of a total of 80,000 volunteers before the pandemic forced the one-year postponement of the games. Japanese citizens living abroad are expected to be allowed to volunteer, according to the officials<\/span>.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>[emphasis added]<\/p>\n

So to recap: Japanese citizens living overseas are not counted as “overseas spectators”. They have that immunity to Covid by dint of their passport.<\/p>\n

This is despite:<\/p>\n