China, Sport, and Globalization

Abstract

A puzzle in the history of modern China is the question of why Western-style sports have been one of the important channels—in some ways, the main channel—through which China has connected with globalization. Western-style sports were introduced into China starting in the late nineteenth century, carried along by Western and Japanese imperialism. Almost from the beginning, international victories and the hosting of the Olympic Games were intertwined with the patriotic desire to restore China’s place among the great nations of the world after its defeats by Japan and the West. However, when the socialist People’s Republic was established in 1949, it joined the attempt to establish an alternative to the Western-dominated global system. China withdrew from international sports competitions for thirty years owing to its refusal to join international organizations that recognized the “Republic of China” on Taiwan. It was only with the end of the Cold War that China became a full participant in the global sport system, as sports developed along with China’s rapidly growing market economy. Still, tensions inevitably persisted because China was a non-Western and Communist-Party led nation. As seen in the cases of pingpong diplomacy, the hosting of the 2008 and 2022 Olympic Games, or the government-led push to become a soccer power, sports served as an intercultural zone for the gradual mutual accommodation between differing worldviews. Sport provides a lens onto the struggles and traumas China endured in order to enter into the global community.