As a book about sport, politics and world affairs, Cha’s compact and informative read ably examines this potent sociopolitical cocktail and its links to Asian countries’ political development and sense of nationhood. Although academic interest in the world’s second oldest pastime and all its off-field machinations has been steadily increasing, surprisingly little has been written about the subject. This is despite countries going to war over sport and fighting for sovereign recognition through an activity that many people around the world consider an essential part of their daily lives.
A former director of Asian affairs on the U.S. National Security Council during the Bush administration, and currently director of Asian studies at Georgetown University, the author is a highly skilled practitioner and scholar on Northeast Asia. When it comes to formulating a relevant and insightful theory on how sport and politics interact in Asia, few are capable of offering a more authoritative voice on the subject.
In examining the significance of sport within the Asian framework, Cha allows readers to peek in at the politicking that lies just outside the playing field. His meticulous research outlines the numerous ways sport has helped turn the international spotlight on societies that hold major events such as the Olympics, World Cup, World Games and even the Deaflympics, which will be staged in Taipei this September. But Cha also reminds readers how these events have shaped relations between countries for both better and worse.
It is difficult to deny that in a world increasingly crafted by the forces of globalism, sport is intractably linked to relations between states and people across the planet. This theme is repeatedly hammered home by Cha and serves as a foundation for his theory that today, major sporting events are one of the few ways in which political landscapes can be transformed post haste without resorting to armed conflict.
On first impressions, the 1964 Tokyo and 2008 Beijing Games are striking examples of the author’s transformation theory in action. Tokyo and Beijing underwent physical makeovers on an unprecedented scale to create the metropolises that they are today. But many argue that these changes were in fact predominantly limited to infrastructure, transportation, sanitation and city beautification projects. For political change, Seoul’s 1988 Olympics are considered a shining example of the impact sport can have on the development of democracy.
Cha writes that May 17, 1980 Chun Doo-hwan and a group of fellow South Korean generals seized power in a military coup following President Park Chung-hee’s assassination in late October the previous year. The junta quickly imposed martial law and Chun had himself elected president. He launched a crackdown against political dissidents, which included sentencing future president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung to death. The Gwangju Massacre—resulting in the death and injury to hundreds of students and townspeople—was also his handiwork.
Although Chun’s rule was considered more lenient than Park’s, South Koreans had grown weary of military dictatorship and winds of change began to blow through the land of the morning calm. Cha is bang on the money in finding that the practices of Chun’s government stood in stark contrast to the Olympic ideal. Violent student demonstrations in 1987 forced the government to implement expanded social reforms and hold direct presidential elections the next year. By attempting to gain domestic and international legitimacy through staging the Games, the generals had rolled the dice and lost all in miscalculating the Seoul Olympiad’s influence as a critical agent of political change.
In describing the events of 1987 as a watershed in South Korea’s move toward democratic rule, Cha believes they are one of the most successful and peaceful cases of democratic transition in the world. He sees the media attention and international focus that goes hand in hand with the Games as playing a critical role in the political transformation of South Korea. The Olympics delivered the international prestige the country desired, but also brought world attention to the forces of internal democratization.
Given South Korea’s experience with the Games and political change, mainland China’s opponents from around the world hoped that history would repeat itself in Beijing last year. In the countdown to the 2008 Summer Olympics, many entertained the possibility of a people’s uprising and the communist regime being shown the door. But as Cha points out, this was not to be.
In the seven-year run up to the Games, the calls by different stakeholders for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics were deafening. Human rights groups, nongovernmental organizations, media personalities and politicians lent their voices to a growing chorus of criticism of Beijing’s human rights record, its trade imbalance with the United States, mainland product safety, and policies toward Darfur, Burma, Tibet, and Xinjiang, among many issues.
The author states that one of the highest profile attacks against the Games was made by actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow. She dubbed the 2008 Games the “Genocide Olympics” and called on corporate sponsors to boycott the Games in protest over Beijing’s lack of efforts to prevent the killings and pillage in Darfur. In addition, Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the “Washington Post,” derided the Games as the “Saffron Olympics” and called for the United States to boycott the event if mainland China did not change its hands-off policy while the military junta in Burma brutally suppressed democracy demonstrations.
The book’s contention is that despite a level of tactical and notional pressure for change, call for boycotts, and demands for political reform in excess to what took place in South Korea two decades earlier, Beijing was more than up to handling the challenge. In the lead-up to the Games and its aftermath, Cha writes that the mainland’s communist rulers dealt with these issues through calibrated changes in policy designed to release some of the pressure and allow for a successful staging of the Olympics. He concludes that although “many of the changes were transparently tactical, they constituted change nonetheless.”
But just as sport can trigger political change, the author believes “it can also be a tool of diplomatic conflict.” Cha observes that this can occur in one of two ways. Sport can be used as a punitive instrument of statecraft, either as a sanction or ban against a target state, or nations can protest or boycott sporting events.
For Taiwan and mainland China, participation in international sporting events is laden with implications in terms of identity and recognition on the global stage. Invitation to a sporting event carries all the connotations of statehood and has been a serious irritant in cross-strait relations.
From 1924, the Republic of China was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the sole representative of China and participated in the 1932 Los Angeles, 1936 Berlin and 1948 London Games. After the ROC relocated to Taiwan in 1949, Beijing challenged Taipei’s right to represent all of China in international sport. The first showdown, Cha writes, was at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Beijing sent its first delegation and forced IOC authorities to choose between either a one- or two-China policy.
The IOC attempted to dodge the issue by inviting both sides to send athletes to Helsinki only in those sports for which they were recognized by international sporting federations. This was unacceptable to Taipei, which protested vigorously and then boycotted the Games after the IOC failed to respond to its appeal.
After Helsinki, the IOC chose to adopt a two-China policy for the 1956 Melbourne Games. Beijing reacted swiftly in announcing its boycott and accusing the IOC of violating its Olympic Charter, which stated that only one team could represent a country in the Games. The mainland withdrew from the IOC and nine other international sporting organizations, demanding that the two-China policy be scrapped. Beijing remained outside the Olympic family for three decades while Taipei participated in all international sport events.
Cha strives hard to document the fascinating political thrust and parry that led to Beijing’s re-entry to world sport at the expense of Taipei. Following former U.S. President Richard Nixon’s opening to mainland China in 1971, international sporting federations came under increasing pressure to admit Beijing and expel Taipei. This culminated in the 1976 Montreal Olympics in which mainland China sought an invitation, but only on the condition Taiwan was banned.
With a mini diplomatic crisis in the works, the IOC proposed a solution where Taipei would participate under the name “Taiwan—Republic of China” with the Olympic flag as its standard. This disgraceful notion was unacceptable to Taiwan and the country walked out of the Games several days before the opening ceremony under protest.
Following the Montreal fiasco, the IOC worked toward brokering a deal that would enable both Taiwan and mainland China to participate in the Games. Eventually, a formula was suggested in 1979 where the ROC would use the name “Chinese Taipei,” but could not fly its national flag during the event. Cha explains that Beijing “jumped at the offer” as the name “Chinese Taipei” made it sound as if Taiwan was a province of mainland China.
Yet, argues Cha, although Taipei has never liked the IOC’s “Chinese Taipei” formula, it has become the only way it can participate in international sport. Since 1984, both Taipei and Beijing have participated in every Olympics in accordance with the agreement, with Taiwan re-entering various sporting federations based on the IOC formula.
But as Cha acknowledges, although a workable model securing Taiwan and the mainland’s involvement in international sport has been nutted out, it is no guarantee that the two sides would not clash over sport in the future. The 2008 Beijing Olympic torch relay saw Taipei reject the planned route because it would imply that Taiwan was part of mainland China. Then President Chen Shui-bian said Beijing was not acting in good faith by trying to use the torch relay to blur the island’s status as an independent state.
As Asia continues to rise and carry greater clout in global politics, “Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia,” is a profound study of the cultural and political dynamics of the Asia-Pacific region. As Victor D. Cha shows, sport is not just about lean bodies glistening with sweat from physical exertion, it is an activity that is of the utmost strategic importance.
write to ttonline@mail.gio.gov.tw