“The government is insisting that the Games will go ahead, and that is partly because so much money, energy and political capital have been invested into the event, but it’s also a matter of face,” said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at the Tokyo campus of Temple University.

“Suga is not a person who is prone to self-reflection, doubt or reconsidering a course of action, and he remains committed to full speed ahead on the Olympics for a lot of reasons,” he said, including the loss of face that would be associated with the Tokyo event being postponed again or cancelled before the February 2022 Winter Olympics is held – in Beijing.

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What’s going on with the rescheduled 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo?

What’s going on with the rescheduled 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo?

Koichi Nakano, a professor of politics at Tokyo’s Sophia University, agreed that while little was being said concerning China’s Olympics, “it is certainly going to be in the backs of the minds of conservatives”.

“Right now, everyone is preoccupied with whether the Tokyo games are even possible, but there is no question that it would be painful to some people if Japan lost out to China as the first host of [a post-pandemic Olympics],” he said. “Conservatives would almost certainly see that as a humiliation.”

In his address to the Diet, Suga said Japan hosting the games would serve as “proof that humanity has defeated the coronavirus” as well as serving to underline the event’s original theme – the rebuilding of northeast Japan a decade after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis of March 2011.

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Analysts say the prime minister has no option but to appear confident that the Games are on track given the global scrutiny over his administration’s every utterance on the matter, including last week’s pronouncement by cabinet minister Taro Kono that the decision “could go either way”.

The rest of the government immediately swung into action, with chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato insisting on Sunday that everything was under control, including measures to ensure the different events do not serve to spread the virus among spectators.

“The Olympics was seen as a way to showcase Japan and focus on the growth strategy of inbound tourism,” Nakano said. “The aim was to bring more Australians into the ski resorts, and wealthy travellers from other parts of Asia, particularly China, with the Olympics serving as the final opportunity to boost arrivals.”

Suga played a pivotal role in that policy, he said, and similarly championed the domestic “Go To Travel” campaign to promote domestic tourism once the nation’s borders were closed to foreign travellers. The campaign was meant to promote the travel sector as a driver of the national economy, but it has proved controversial amid Covid-19 surges in Japan.

“It could all come to nothing,” Nakano said. “The failure of a campaign that he spearheaded would not just be a humiliation, but it could very easily mean Suga losing his direction entirely.”

Kingston of Temple University said the prime minister would not be blind to the challenges that needed to be overcome for the Olympics to go ahead, as well as the precarious nature of his position, but added that Suga had no choice but to project an air of supreme confidence.

“He will be pushing it hard, because of all the vested interests behind the scenes, up until they have to make a decision on whether to pull the plug because it could become a super-spreader event,” he said. “Up until that point, he will be putting a brave face on it.”