Japan decides not to send gov't delegation to Beijing Olympics

Very unwise decision.

The Olympic was meant for the  athletes to shine period

Politicians attend or not mean nothing zilch, nada zero.

japan disappointed me, but they lost the war so they have to do what the boss says

I hope China won't boycott olympic in lost angeles, the more medals they won = the less the medals the yankess win

It is really disappointing that so many people have commented on the words “genocide” and even that Japan should not send athletes to the Winter Olympics, even to the extent of criticizing the Japanese government.

I think we should all be rational and not kid ourselves what is going on between USA and China. Thousands of people are being murdered by Myanmar’s dictator, nobody is calling it a genocide? I trust only proof and photographic evidence, but Xinjiang’s so called genocide is just “accounts” of dissidents, satellite photos of regular buildings being called “torture chambers” … what photographic evidence is there of torture, or human remains were found? None. In fact the Israel Defense Forces used phosphorus weapons against Lebanon civilians, causing horrific deaths - were they even prosecuted at the war crimes tribunals? Not to mention Iraq’s WMD which were never found. PM Kishida must have been well aware of all of this nonsense. Olympic players should not be peanalized because of politics.

Unfortunately the title of this article should read as “Japan decides NOT to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics”. Japan is sending 3 of its Olympic officials, not to forget that Seiko Hashimoto was in fact the Olympics minister for the Suga administration.

PM Kishida did one of the finest balancing acts, equating the same level of officials that China send during the Tokyo Olympics. So in reality he indeed decided it on Japan’s own terms and not USA’s or anybody’s terms. This is his brilliance.

Strange how many of the self appointed champions of human rights and democracy have, in the time since the last Olympics, refused to acknowledge the results of democratic elections in multiple countries, voted against investigations into human rights abuses in places where they are blatantly obvious, voted against UN resolutions condemning racism, refused to adopt official definitions of Islamophobia, and, in one case, simply absolved itself of committing a war crime, despite the fact that it committed a war crime being so widely reported that it didn't try to deny what it did, or that it constituted a war crime.

You can put on the whitest of gloves, and vigorously denounce others for their actions, but when anyone who takes three seconds to check you out can see you doing the thing you're denouncing again and again, well, the gloves and the vigor look like posturing for the public consumption of those who don't really care about the crimes, just like posturing.

IOC, WHO, WTO....etc How exactly those are also corrupted by Chinese money or even by Honey traps?

Are these so-called quasi-UN organizations are functioning?

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a regular news conference that "we have no plans to send a government delegation."

That is the right decision. The IOC is thoroughlty corrupted by the CCP anyway (just remember that pathetic interview with Bach and Peng Shui), so if the Olympic crooks go that is par for the course.

Meanwhile, the US is already scrambling backwards on their own boycott by applying for visas for 18 government officials...the ones who supposedly should be boycotting? Meaning the ineffectual diplomatic boycott isn't even that, it was just lip service.

Pretty bad timing for Japan to finally fall in line with the US just as the US changes their position. I wonder if Japan will apply in the same way, and if China would actually grant them to anybody.

" Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made human rights a key part of his diplomacy" and yet Kishida continues to avoid making a solid commitment.

"The Chinese foreign ministry appealed to Tokyo not to politicize sports." The International Olympic Committee should demand that the CCP not politicize sports, and oh, by the way, cease the Uyghurs genocide, and release all political prisoners.

let me guess-could you expect any different "decision" to make than they get from white house by fax?

Unfortunate news.

I wish Japan would act on its own and not bow to what the US wants.

The nature of the severity of the virus was largely unknown at the time of sequencing and the entire world was in a panic. Had the virus been as lethal as predicted, a few days head start could have been the difference in saving millions of lives. 

No it would not, that is a completely false argument, the vaccines took almost a year to be developed, taking a couple of days more or less would have been irrelevant. There is simply no population level situation where a couple of days would have made a difference. The measures that were most effective at the moment (quarantine) had absolutley no need for any support from China, if anything it had the opposite.

The sequencing required samples from 12 infected patients, it is not simply a matter of one case being discovered in Japan or elsewhere.

Sequencing do not "require" samples from more than one sample, if the chinese say this that would mean they are hopelessly behind the times, samples from any single patient are enough to extract DNA and DNA and run a NGS reaction to identify any possible patoghen, COVID runs with very high viral titers on secretions making this terribly easy to do.

And no, the efforts of ALL countries were the important, China had no special role that could not have been fulfilled by this effort, so no dependency, no escencial part of the advances, no expertise nor resources that could only come from China.

If China was some little Balkan country that was to host the Olympics and was doing the same sort of ethnic cleansing as China is doing now against the Uyghurs, the entire Games -athletes included- would be boycotted, no question.

But since China has all of our governments by the balls and supplies us with cheap pancake spatulas, affordable monster television sets, and half the little components that go into cars, they largely get a pass.

The Uyghurs and their plight aren't as important as they would be otherwise. Money talks.

It is completely delusional to suggest that China should be applauded in any sense for their cooperation in vaccines development - having released the Chinavirus, they tried every trick in the book to cover it up, and Chinese doctors who spoke to the world's media-outlets became 'disappeared' (ie: dead, as is the Chinese style), and they obfuscated massively when pressed on the virus-contents in order that the rest of the world's scientists could unravel the sequencing in order to develop successful vaccines. They even went ahead with their New Year travels and celebrations to ensure this was a perfect super-spreading gift to the world, stamped: "Made in China".

And now we've learned how useless their own Sinovac vaccines have been, their population of 1.4billion people are in effect unvaccinated

"Thanking China, rather than ostracising them", give me a break.....

Not sending delegates isn't even much, and this isn't even that.

China has criticized the United States and other countries for violating political neutrality required

If stressing political neutrality, why does Beijing invite (or force?) foreign state officials in the first place? Stupid?? They never have to do, and the IOC never requires them to do so.

TokyoLivingToday  07:11 pm JST

A cowardly move from Japan, knowing that China supported Tokyo 2020..

HOW?

i don't care about this article. orimpic is sports featival, so just see and enjoy it.

This isn't a proactive decision made by an independent body. It's just the latest "Yes sir will do so sir" by spineless paid off LDP stiffs.

I agree with this move.

Good, every little helps.

I love the boycott but I am now worried about the safety of the athletes. I expect China to detain and charge some of them as “spies.”

Anyway, like it or not, the Beijing games will go ahead and NOTHING can stop them as well as the inevitable advance of the great Chinese development..

The country that has good relations with China will grow together, whoever is against it will not have a good economic future.

The future is RED..

A cowardly move from Japan, knowing that China supported Tokyo 2020..

How pathetic to seek the approval of the US that only seeks to destabilize the region for its own warlike and commercial interests..

That way there will never be good relations in the region and we will be closer to an international conflict.

However NOBODY has the courage not to send athletes, they know that being against China will bring its economic consequences..

I have not found the first proof that China commits human rights violations with the Uyghur community, unlike the recognized hypocritical "first world democracy" of the US where human rights violations are committed against all its minorities everyday..

Definitely the US is the worst of the influences in the world, a danger to world peace and mankind understanding..

Very bad decision.

Never support mainland china in any form, thank you.

The genetic sequence was uploaded in early January 2020 before there were any cases elsewhere in the world.

Thailand had a confirmed case the same day (January 13th) that the uploading of the sequence was announced, that means a minimum of a delay would have been necessary from that point. Definetely nothing that would make the contribution "dependent" on China.

Chinese researchers were the only ones who could carry out the task at the time.

But a few days later researchers from many Asian countries could easily carry out the same task, yours is a terribly weak argument. Even here in Japan the first case was detected on January 16th.

Saying that the world should be grateful for an advantage of only a few days is not an argument.

Good! Hashimoto is coming over.

Thank you for not wasting my tax money.

Why should have these people travelled on it?

Cowards

Weak, weak, weak. That's how Japan is seen on all sides.

Stop doing business with china, do your part and boycott all goods made in china!

If the Western countries and Japan are so concerned about China’s gross human rights violations, they shouldn’t be sending their athletes to the Beijing Games. A full boycott is the only answer.

What’s the issue Mari? The person CCP sent, after all, to Tokyo Olympics was not equivalent? Is Japan supposed to send a member of the cabinet at least?

. None of the vaccines could have been produced without China and the CCP's help and expertise. 

What is your basis for this? the vaccines approved for use in occident do not depend on any Chinese expertise or help. Their development is based on multinational research activities over the course of more than a decade, once the sequence of the virus is known (and that do not require any specially difficult step) that is enough to make the antigen or the mRNA to produce the vaccine. Waiting for an extra week to use other sequences obtained from patients from any other country where they were identified would have delayed the production of the vaccine only that amount of time, hardly enough to call this "dependent".

Attending athletes should be careful of any harassments or something worse. Peng Shuai's alleged rapist has still remained free or hiding. Even though they do "harm" to foreign athletes, they may get exempted from any charge claiming it's a patriotic act. No joke.

In my opinion, this is a correct decision that is not only compliant with human rights, but also gives an answer against hegemonic politics!

The Chinese government has definitely some evil in it….. this week the Gleichshaltung of Hong Kong reached its climax, the universities took the Tienmaen memorials down….

The Olympics is about athletes, the chance to compete is a reward for their dedication.

Politicians, sponsors, TV schedules etc butting in is unavoidable but sadly detracts from the true meaning of this event.

When you consider that they've polluted the world with their Chinavirus Plague (currently 4.5million dead, 2billion infected), and all of the other blatant aggressions displayed by the deceitful CCP, I can not think of a stronger case for all of the Governments of the civilised countries in the world instructing their Teams / Athletes NOT to go to China under any circumstances.

China has to be taught a very big lesson, that by her actions, she could never currently be considered 'a normal country' - it's become the ultimate pariah state.

Good. I’m pleasantly surprised by this decision.

Now if all of us will just stop funding the atrocities by not buying crap we don’t need from the CPP we might actually get somewhere…..

Good. Screw china

That's not a proper boycott! Japan and other allied countries shouldn't send athletes to the event and host their own parallel event somewhere else. After what China did to the world they don't deserve to host anything.

Other than the human rights issue, Japan has valid reason to boycott the Games to protest China's non-stop territorial intrusion (which is more significant with regard to Japan's national interests as Kishida stresses).

Beijing will suffer covid-resurgence. So long as they insist on zero corona totalitarian approach, the Games will be troubled, and even invited foreign guests will have to "boycott" the event :)

Weak.

Japan should not be sending anyone to this sickening event.

Boycott the Genocide Games.