Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida says he has no plans to attend Beijing Winter Olympics 2022
- Kishida said Japan will make a decision after comprehensively taking into account various issues in consideration of the national interest
- This appears to be a softer tone than the diplomatic boycott by the US, Canada, Australia and Britain over China’s human rights record
“At the moment, I have no plans to attend,” Kishida said in parliament when asked by Shinkun Haku, a lawmaker of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, about whether he will travel to China in February.
But Kishida followed up by saying, “It is important to make a judgment by myself at an appropriate time after comprehensively taking into account various issues in consideration of the national interest.”
Kishida’s remarks in the House of Councillors’ Budget Committee meeting came after the United States announced it is not sending officials to the Games amid intensifying criticism of China’s human rights record.
Japan caught between China, US over diplomacy, Olympics boycott: analysts
China has called the boycotts “political posturing” and a smear campaign.
So far, the diplomatic boycott has been joined by various countries, including Australia, Britain and Canada, while France said last week it will not boycott in a break from other Group of Seven industrialised nations. Paris is due to host the Summer Games in 2024.
Japan, a close ally of the United States, is concerned about what it perceives as growing threats from China. But it is also economically reliant on its neighbour, both as a manufacturing hub and as a customer for its automobiles and other products.
Tokyo is reportedly considering not sending cabinet ministers to the Beijing Olympics. Various options are being mulled including sending Seiko Hashimoto, an upper house lawmaker and president of the organising committee of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, or Japanese Olympic Committee head Yasuhiro Yamashita, according to government and ruling party sources.
In the same parliamentary session, Kishida instructed that a third-party investigation be commenced into the government’s overstating of construction orders data that ran for about eight years, a practice that may have led to a miscalculation of the country’s gross domestic product figures.
Japan admits to overstating GDP component data for years
It was revealed that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism had since 2013 double-counted some data it received from businesses when compiling its monthly construction orders figures.
Kishida said members of the probe panel include a former prosecutor and lawyer as well as a statistics specialist. The panel will compile its findings within a month.
Additional reporting by Reuters
