"Xi Jinping Proposes Vaccine Supply for Tokyo Olympics to Prevent Japan's Boycott of Beijing Olympics"

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On the 22nd of last month, President Xi Jinping of China attended a climate summit held via non-face-to-face video conference in Beijing. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Chinese President Xi Jinping's proposal to provide COVID-19 vaccines for this year's Tokyo Summer Olympics is analyzed as a strategic move to prevent Japan from boycotting next year's Beijing Winter Olympics.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported this on the 16th. Citing China's state-run Xinhua News Agency, SCMP stated that President Xi proposed providing Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines for the Tokyo Summer Olympics this July during a phone call last week with Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This move drew attention as it came despite deteriorating China-Japan relations since the inauguration of the Joe Biden administration and Japan's refusal of China's vaccine offer two months ago.

Regarding this, SCMP interpreted that China aims to ease strained relations with Japan to prevent Japan from joining Western countries in boycotting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Recently, voices in North America and Europe have been growing, calling for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights issues concerning the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.

Huang Yanzhong, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), explained, "Despite recent China-Japan conflicts, China supports the Tokyo Olympics and is expected to send a large delegation, which shows the Chinese authorities' concern over the Beijing Winter Olympics becoming a political issue. Japan's stance is very important to China, which is surrounded by the United States and the European Union (EU)."

SCMP also reported that China had previously offered vaccines to the Tokyo Olympics in March, but the Tokyo Olympic Committee rejected the offer, citing that Chinese vaccines had not been approved in Japan at that time. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the emergency use of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine on the 7th (local time), it remains uncertain whether it will be used at the Tokyo Olympics.

Sourabh Gupta, a researcher at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said, "Japan is one of the few developed countries that has not expressed support for boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics or adopted significant anti-China policies. This is Japan's dilemma ahead of the Summer Olympics, and China is trying to capitalize on this to prevent Japan from joining the boycott of the Beijing Olympics."