At the Games, rowdy nationalism combines with war drums – 07/30/2021 – Nelson de Sá

TV Globo presenter Galvão Bueno and Chinese Global Times editor Hu Xijin didn’t even notice, but this week they were side by side in revolt against Japan’s alleged Olympic favor.

Questioning the judges who gave Kanoa Igarashi an advantage over Gabriel Medina, in surfing, Galvão said they made a big mistake. “Why was his aerial worth 8.7 and the Japanese’s over 9, if the Japanese still had his hand on the board?”

Hu did not speak, but his newspaper’s most widely read report was that “Chinese judges question judges’ fairness after Daiki Hashimoto won gold.”

Citing the reaction of celebrities and “Internet users” in general on the Sina Weibo platform, he published that the Japanese gymnast “made several mistakes during the dispute while the Chinese Xiao Ruoteng made none”.

Not that things are different in Japan on social media.

Almost at the same time that the Brazilians and Chinese rose up against the judges, Naomi Osaka was eliminated – and was not treated with the affection that surrounded American Simone Biles, in a similar situation.

Thousands of Japanese Yahoo News users made or supported aggressive comments against the tennis player in the portal’s elimination news.

One of them, who ended up in the New York Times account of Osaka’s “social media hits”, even questioned her nationality: “I still don’t understand why she was. the torchbearer. [na abertura]. Even though she says she’s Japanese, she barely speaks Japanese. “

Born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, Osaka moved as a child to the United States, where she lived with her grandparents speaking Haitian Creole as well as English.

Another message from a Japanese net surfer about her: “Black Lives Matter is not the theme of the Tokyo Games. She could not focus on the game and deserved the defeat.”

Until then star of the tournament, Osaka disappeared, traded on the NHK network and in the headlines of the nation’s biggest newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, for softball gold, with a victory over the so-called “archenemy of the United States “.

Nationalism at the Olympics flees to other parts. Dividing the Yomiuri house, this Tuesday (27) there was a photo of a ship that will be transformed by the end of the year into the first Japanese aircraft carrier since World War II.

The Izumo, as it’s called, will work with “the state-of-the-art US F35B stealth fighter,” and the nemesis here is another. “It is intended to contain China, in joint operations with the Americans,” the newspaper said.

Japan’s successive victories, with or without a judge’s help, would already translate into greater support for the Games in the country – and the former prime minister who took the event to Japan, Shinzo Abe, is reappeared.

It was during a meeting in Tokyo with “Assembly Members of the Republic of China”, Taiwan’s official name. And Abe’s statement underlined by the Nikkei newspaper was addressed to China: “What happened in Hong Kong must never happen in Taiwan.

Another country that rivals Japan, China and the United States for the top of the various medal tables, Russia, has also been the target of a warning.

The Russian prime minister visited the Kuril Islands this week, claimed by Japan, and Tokyo called on the ambassador to criticize “strongly”, prompting the Kremlin spokesman to respond in the same tone.

In this intermittent web of Olympic and geopolitical news, the Global Times closed the week by noting that Russia will join China for military exercises.

It will be in western China, far from Japan, and their defense ministers have referred to “the situation in Afghanistan”.

It was just after the US Secretary of State visited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and removed a threat against China for rapprochement with Pakistan and Afghanistan, which was headlined in Indian newspapers.

Meanwhile, the Chinese social media uprising continued with judges allegedly favoring the Japanese gymnast by winning Chinese gold.

One judge in particular, who allegedly tweeted in 2019 that “someone has to stop” the Chinese, in a seemingly playful remark. But the judge is Indian and the sentence made headlines in Guancha, now China’s leading news site, in Chinese.

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