Tokyo has been granted its second Olympics and Shinzo Abe knows just the story the games should tell: the same one as the first time round, in 1964, when the five-ringed banners all but shouted the prime minister’s favourite slogan, “Japan is back”.
Mr Abe and his government are framing Tokyo 2020 as the symbolic heir to the Japanese capital’s Olympic debut half a century ago. Fittingly, it was Mr Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who led the country when Tokyo’s bid for 1964 went through.
Japan used those games to showcase its economic and diplomatic rebirth after a devastating world war. Now, Mr Abe hopes to crown its emergence from a long period of economic stagnation and malaise, which began in the 1990s and still clings to its heels.
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