Why the 2020 Olympics won’t solve Japan’s problems

Celebrations abounded in Tokyo last month after it was announced that the Japanese capital would host the 2020 Olympic Games. The decision rested partly on the assumptions that the nuclear situation in Fukushima is manageable, and that the Games will bring opportunities for recovery to the tsunami-destroyed communities. But there is a larger problem underlying the relationship between Tokyo and the rest of Japan, which the Olympic Games threatens to obscure as well as exacerbate; one which the world should take seriously. For this relationship is profoundly emblematic of great changes taking place across East Asia and which may present a historic cleavage between the 20th and 21st centuries.