False: Japanese prime minister did not say India will get medals for not coming to the Olympics
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On June 7, a video on Facebook featuring Indian and Japanese prime ministers Narendra Modi and Yoshihide Suga suggested that their speeches can be translated into Chinese as follows:
India: We are ready to participate in the Tokyo Olympics at any time!
日本：只要你們不要来奖牌可全给你！
Japan: We’ll give you medals for not coming!”
However, these added subtitles in the clip were fabricated. Both speeches have nothing to do with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics that have been postponed for a year.
The speech by Modi comes from the event called International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue 2018 in Singapore. Modi discussed India’s foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region in the conference with defense ministers from around the world.
Annie Lab can confirm that Modi’s speech on the Facebook post was taken from this event’s video clip posted by IISS on YouTube because they are identical in words (the official transcript of his speech is available here).
The part where he says, “We are the world’s two most populous countries and among the fastest-growing major economies,” appears in the IISS video at 24:30, which can also be seen in the Facebook video in question.
Suga’s speech comes from the 203rd session of the Diet on Oct. 26, 2020. According to the transcript of his speech (Japanese version here), Suga discussed various topics and the part used in the false post talks about the relationship between Japan and China.
Annie Lab added correct translation subtitles to the video:
When questioned by a Facebook user in the comment section whether the claim was a joke as the translation was off, the author of the post wrote it is for real.
The fabricated translation was made in reference to the ongoing second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in India, which made the country the first nation to hit 400,000 new cases per day. The lack of oxygen for the dying patients recently sparked a crisis.
Modi said on his official Twitter account that India is preparing for the Tokyo games despite the situation on June 3, a few days before the misleading video was posted.
The Tokyo Olympics is slated to start on July 23.
