The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 7 | Issue 23 | Number 4 | Jun 2009

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The Beijing Olympics as a Turning Point? China’s First Olympics inEast Asian Perspective

Susan Brownell

The Beijing Olympics as a Turning Point? China’sFirst Olympics in East Asian Perspective

Susan Brownell

It is commonly stated that the 1964 and 1988Olympics were “turning points” for theintegration of Japan and South Korea,respectively, into the global community. It wasanticipated that the Beijing Olympics would be a“turning point” for China. Now that the BeijingGames are over, we can ask whether anything“turned,” and if so, in which direction? Thisessay deals with a central paradox of theOlympic Games – they reinforce nationalism andinternationalism at the same time. A one-sidedfocus on nationalism, such as characterized muchof the media coverage of the Beijing Olympics,can lead to the erroneous conclusion that theOlympic Games exacerbate rather than moderatepolitical conflicts. Wishful thinking that theBeijing Games would be a turning point forhuman rights and democracy led to theconclusion by China watchers in the West thatthe Beijing Games were not the turning point thatwas hoped for. However, reflection on whatactually “turned” in Japan and South Korea helpsus to see what we should actually be looking forin the case of China. This retrospective suggeststhat the interplay between nationalism andinternationalism was similar in all three OlympicGames, and offers a more optimistic prospect forChina’s peaceful integrat ion into theinternational community.

Most of the modern Olympic Games heldbetween 1896 and 1988 took place in the shadowof wars, past, present, and future. The political

animosity surrounding Beijing 2008 wasespecially highlighted by contrast with thecomparatively tranquil background of the fourpreceding Olympics. The Albertville 1992 WinterGames had been the first Olympics in historyconsidered to have “100% participation,” with noboycotts or IOC-dictated exclusions (in additionto these reasons, before World War II nationsoften did not compete for lack of funding orindifference from the central government). SouthAfrica’s exclusion since 1964 had ended in 1988,but the tail end of the Cold War had extendedinto the Seoul Games with the boycott by NorthKorea, Cuba, and Ethiopia. The Barcelona 1992Summer Olympics were marred only by theIOC’s barring of Yugoslavia; both there and atthe preceding Albertville Games, the formerSoviet Union was represented by the UnifiedTeam. From the Barcelona Olympics onward theGames were considered to forward integrationand reconciliation, and the political issues thatdominated public opinion were domestic orregional (Catalonian sovereignty in Barcelona1992; the rise of the American South and racialintegration in Atlanta 1996; Aboriginal rights inSydney 2000; Greece taking its place as arespected EU member in 2004).

Although after the Tibetan uprisings in March2008 some Chinese expressed the hope that theBeijing Olympics might promote ethnicreconciliation like that between Aborigines andWhites in Sydney 2000, a closer look would haverevealed that in Austral ia the work ofreconciliation through the Olympic Games hadbegun at least as early as 1996, when the use ofaboriginal symbols in the Sydney segment of theAtlanta closing ceremony had provoked protest.

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In Beijing, however, the use of ethnic minoritysymbols, including Tibetan symbols, was notablyabsent in the opening ceremony, which wasespecially significant since the use of dancing andsinging minorities to symbolize national unity isa common f ixture in Chinese nat ionalcelebrations. The restoration of dialogue with theDalai Lama and a discussion about whether toinvite him to the opening ceremony onlyemerged after the March uprisings, whichsuggests that previous to that time no seriousattempt had been made to utilize the Gamestoward reconciliation between Tibetans andHan. Indeed, the National Traditional Games ofEthnic Minorities of the People’s Republic ofChina, which had been one of the showpieces ofthe P.R.C.’s ethnic policy since their initiation in1953, suffered from a lack of attention due to thefocus on the Olympics when the 8th installmentwas held in Guangzhou in December 2007. Mostof the opening ceremonies performers were Hanstudents dressed as minorities and many of theathletes were Han students at sport institutesrecently recruited to learn “traditional ethnicsports.”

Another reconciliation that did not take place at asymbolic level was that between the people andthe Communist Party as represented in the figureof Chairman Mao. As Geremie Barmé andJeffrey Wasserstrom have observed, ChairmanMao was absent in Zhang Yimou’s openingceremony, which skipped from the Ming dynastyto the late 1970s and gave the spotlight toConfucius, whom Wasserstrom has called “thecomeback kid” of the Beijing Games. [1] TheCommunist Revolution was also generally absentfrom Olympic symbolism. This was due to adecision that traced its roots back to the 1990Asian Games, China’s first hosting of a majorinternational sport festival. The culturalperformance in the Asian Games ceremony hadbeen choreographed by the same national teamof choreographers that had designed the culturalperformances for the previous three ChineseNational Games – starting in 1979 with the first

post-Cultural Revolution performance, whichhad the theme “The New Long March.” Thethemes and symbols utilized by this team ofchoreographers had gradually evolved awayfrom the political symbols that dominatedceremonies after 1949 and toward “culturalsymbols.” The 1990 Asian Games had takenplace one year after the Tiananmen Incident,which had been a disaster for China’sinternational relations and a severe setback for itsplans to reach out to the world through the AsianGames. (The Asian Games were, nevertheless,the occasion for the first official cross-straitsexchanges, and Taiwan sent a large officialdelegation.)[2] In 1990 it was recognized that“ethnic cultural” （民族文化）symbols weremore attractive to the outside world in generaland also constituted a shared cultural repertoirewith East Asians and overseas Chinese.[3]

By the time the planning for the Beijingceremonies had begun, this strategy for drawingin international audiences was known as the“cultural China” （文化中国）strategy. It tracedits roots to multiple international developments,including the 1980s and 1990s works of Harvardhistorian and philosopher Tu Weiming and other“New Confucianists,” as well as governmentpolicies for promoting the “cultural industry” inJapan and South Korea in the mid to late 1990s;the international orientation of the Koreancultural policies had gained impetus from the1986 Asian Games and 1988 Olympic Games inSeoul.[4] “Cultural China” was also expressed inthe Chinese government’s support for“Confucius Institutes” around the world, and itwas linked to Hu Jintao’s concept of “softpower.” For the Beijing 2008 Olympics, a keypolicy recommendation from the People’sUniversity concluded, “On this basis, wecautiously propose that in the construction ofChina’s national image, we should hold the lineon ‘cultural China,’ and the concept of ‘culturalChina’ should not only be the core theme in thedialogue between China and the internationalcommunity in Olympic discourse, but also it

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should be added into the long-term strategic planfor the national image afterwards”[5]. Althoughthe vast majority of educational and culturalprograms surrounding the Beijing Olympicstargeted the domestic population (see thediscussion of Olympic education below), a debateabout the target audience for the opening andclosing ceremonies was resolved in favor of theinternational audience. Film director ZhangYimou, the choreographer of the ceremonies, isnot well-regarded inside China, where his workis seen as pandering to Western tastes with asuperficial and exoticized picture of traditionalChinese culture. His “Eight Minute Segment” inthe closing ceremony of the Athens Olympicswas so disliked that the bid competition for thechoreography of the 2008 ceremonies was re-opened. That Zhang was finally re-confirmed in2005 indicates that the final decision was toprioritize international tastes over domestic.

Tang Dynasty Symbolism in the OpeningCeremony. From BOCOG official website

(http://en.beijing2008.cn)

In the end, the only significant violence did notpit sovereign states against one another but tookplace in China’s Tibetan areas. However, thisshould not mislead us into thinking that theBeijing Games did not take place in the shadowof war – a point that, I believe, was very presentin the minds of the East Asian audience but wasmissed by Westerners with shorter and morespatially distant memories. And it is importantto remember that the Beijing Olympics were the

first Olympics to take place in an East Asiancountry that is not host to U.S. military bases.This was the “present absence” in 2008 incomparison to Tokyo 1964 and Seoul 1988.

Shimizu Satoshi, Christian Tagsold, and JillyTraganou remind us that many of the symbols ofthe 1964 Tokyo Olympics established continuitywith pre-war Japanese national symbols.[6] Japan did not have an official national flag oranthem in 1964: the hi no maru flag and the kimigayo anthem had been proscribed by theoccupation authorities after World War II andwere not officially reinstated as the national flagand anthem of Japan until 1999, and indeed, theyhave been plagued by controversy ever since. However, the logo of the Tokyo Olympicsconsisted of the rising sun over the five Olympicrings, which was also used in the first of the fourofficial posters. While designer KamekuraYūsaku denied that his design was the hi nomaru, stating that it was meant simply to be a redsun, he had played an active role in nationalistrepresentations of Japan in wartime propaganda.

Tokyo Olympic Poster. From IOC officialwebsite (http://www.olympic.org)

The 1964 torch relay was the longest held to thatdate; indeed, a sense of rivalry with Japan’scoming-out party may well have been a principal

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reason that China insisted on holding the largest-ever international torch relay. The Tokyo 1964torch passed from its origin in Olympia, Greece,across the Middle East and Asia, into countriesthat Japan had once invaded, finishing withBurma, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines,Hong Kong and Taiwan (but not Korea) - andthen on to Okinawa, which at that time remaineda U.S. military colony. The Mainichi Shimbunwrote, “In Okinawa, it gave power, hope andencouragement to the islanders who are longingfor the day when America returns Okinawa toJapan.”[7] Indeed, an Okinawan movement forreversion to Japan was gaining strength as theOlympics neared. During the relay in Okinawa,hi no maru flags were waved by spectators onthe roadside and the kimi gayo anthem wasplayed, which, as Tagsold points out, lentcultural weight to Japan’s claim to Okinawa.

In Tagsold’s accompanying essay, the role of thegenbakuko (atom boy), and the Self-Defenseforces in the opening ceremony offer points ofcomparison with the Beijing Olympics, as doeshis argument that the Tokyo Olympics enabledthe “re-nationalization” of Japan by associatingthe classical national symbols (flag, anthem,emperor, military) with the Olympic symbols ofinternationalism and peace. This subtle symbolicshift was largely unremarked in the West, andthe concomitant absence of internationalcontestation contributes to today’s recollection ofthe Tokyo Olympics as a peaceful turning pointin Japan’s integration into the internationalcommunity. Tagsold also argues that Sakai’signiting of the torch enabled Japan to assume therole of victim in World War II as the first nationto bear the brunt of atomic attack.[4] Whiledetailed scholarship on U.S. and Asian reactionsto the use of symbols associated with emperor,nation and the Asia Pacific War in Tokyo 1964 islacking, it appears that neither the U.S. nor theAsian victims of Japanese colonialism and warpublicly opposed the use of symbols representingJapan’s “re-nationalization” or its claim onOkinawa.

Before the Beijing 2008 Games, the major regionaltension - between China and Taiwan - flared upin April 2007 over the route of the torch relay,when Taiwan insisted that the torch must enterTaiwan and exit through a third country so that itwould not be portrayed as a territory ofmainland China with a dependent status similarto that of Hong Kong and Macao. Given thehuge IOC effort to mediate between China andTaiwan in the decades of China’s exclusion fromthe IOC (1958-1979), it was significant that nohigh-profile negotiations were held and fivemonths later it was simply announced thatTaiwan would be bypassed – but this can beunderstood if one realizes that this was actually aperipheral affair by Olympic standards, since noboycott of the Olympic Games was beingproposed and that is the central concern of theIOC. The IOC organizes the Olympic Games, butthe local organizing committee organizes thetorch re lay. The basic problem of theparticipation of both parties in the OlympicGames had been resolved decades beforehand bythe IOC’s 1979 Nagoya Resolution stipulatingthat Taiwan cannot use any of the nationalsymbols of the Republic of China in Olympicvenues, but must compete under the name, flagand anthem of the Chinese Taipei OlympicCommittee. This “Olympic formula” is today theagreement that enables the participation of bothTaiwan and China in many other internationalorganizations. The China-Taiwan tension waseased by the March 2008 election of the KMT’sMa Ying-jeou as Taiwan’s President, opening anew page in China-Taiwan diplomacy.

Like all host countries, China attempted to usethe Olympic Games to promote its own agendas. The torch relay was intended to symbolizenational unity when it announced that theinternational relay would advance from Vietnamto Taiwan and on to Hong Kong. Taiwan,however, refused to take part in a route thatrepresented Taiwan as a domestic stop (althoughit was agreed that the neutral word 海外，“overseas,” would be used to describe the

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relay before the torch landed on the mainland,r a t h e r t h a n t h e p r o b l e m a t i c 国际，“international”). In stark contrast to the U.S.’slaissez-faire approach to Okinawa in 1964, theP . R . C . g o v e r n m e n t m a i n t a i n e d a nuncompromising position against any symbols ofTaiwanese (or Tibetan) independence andsovereignty. The Parade of Athletes in theopening ceremony provoked minor issues thatwere mostly missed by the non-Chinese-speakingworld. When the first cross-straits sportsexchange was to take place at the 1990 AsianGames in Beijing, the Chinese translation of theEnglish “Chinese Taipei” became a point ofcontention. The mainland had typicallytranslated it as Zhongguo Taibei（中国台北）,but Taiwan translated it as Zhonghua Taibei（中华台北）, a distinction of one character thatmakes little difference even to Chinese speakersexcept that, if one were to split hairs, one mightunderstand Zhongguo as implying “Chinesenational territory” and Zhonghua as implying“Chinese people.” The 1989 agreement betweenthe two sides had stated that China would allowTaiwan to use Zhonghua Taibei in officialOlympic venues, but China would retain itscustomary usage in non-official settings,including media coverage and sports announcingin Mainland events. Leading up to the openingceremony, there had been rumblings in theTaiwanese media that if Taiwan were to beannounced as Zhongguo Taibei when it enteredthe stadium, then Taiwan should boycott theGames; this was based on an erroneousunderstanding of the agreement and actually wasnever in question. When Taiwan entered thestadium, it was announced in English, then inFrench, and finally in Mandarin as ZhonghuaTaibei. When Chinese Hong Kong entered, itwas announced according to Mainland custom asZhongguo Xianggang. Another problem hadbeen created by the Chinese decision to useChinese character stroke order in determiningthe order of the entering nations, because this putChinese Taipei and Chinese Hong Kong next toeach other - China as the host country marched in

last, and so it was not a factor. As with the torchrelay, Taiwan refuses to march adjacent to Chinain the Parade because it would symbolize it as aprovince of China; this is a problem in English, aswell, which has been solved by having Taiwanmarch with the “T’s.” The problem was solvedby inserting the Central African Republicbetween Taiwan and Hong Kong – since “China”literally means “central country,” the CentralAfrican Republic shares the character zhong withthem. Ironically, the stroke order placed Japanbefore Chinese Taipei, but with Taiwan’s formercolonial status no longer problematic forTaiwanese identity, this was not an issue.

Chinese Taipei enters the stadium in the openingceremony. Source

(http://tw.people.com.cn/GB/7636145.html)

As in the lighting of the torch by Sakai in 1964,the incident in the Paris leg of the torch relay,when a Tibetan protester tried to wrench thetorch away from a young Chinese femaleParalympic athlete in a wheelchair, produced animage of China as a victim that received a greatdeal of attention in the Chinese media. Thevictimization function was further carried out bythe nine year-old survivor from the Sichuanearthquake disaster area who entered thestadium beside the flagbearer, basketball iconYao Ming, in the opening ceremony. The smallflag carried by the boy was upside down, aninternational nautical symbol for distress. However, i t appeared that the boy had

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unintentionally flipped the flag, because noofficial explanation was issued, and Xinhua newsagency requested clients not to use a photo of itshortly after sending it out. While not as forcefulas the image of Japan victimized by the atombombs, within China these symbols did preservethe Chinese narrative of victimization in themidst of the most grandiose Olympics ever.

Yao Ming, flagbearer for China, enters thestadium with Lin Hao, earthquake survivor.

Source(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/0

8/content_9057855.htm)

Looking back on the 1964 torch relay andOlympics from the perspective of 2008, onewonders why the Tokyo Games did not incite afuror as the Beijing Games did. Given theextensive Japanese atrocities associated withcolonialism and war and Japan’s failure to makeeffective apologies and reparations to victims atthat time, the key symbols and torch relay seemeven more inflammatory than those surroundingthe Beijing Games. Tagsold’s accompanyingessay argues that the symbolic work wassufficiently subtle to bypass domestic legal andmoral arguments, and few Western observerswere aware of the ongoing conflicts between

Japan and the nations it had occupied andcolonized a generation earlier. But, he argues,more important was the general historicalcontext; in the Cold War era, the effort to delimitthe Olympic Games as “apolitical” was strongerthan it is now because the international politicalstakes were higher. I would argue that in 1964this produced a stronger “will not to know” thanwas present in 2008. One big difference is thatthe 2008 Olympics were a media mega-event farexceeding what the Tokyo Olympics were, andthis provided a platform for human rights andTibetan NGOs with a higher level of media savvyand organization than had heretofore been seenin the Olympic context. It was easy to be misledby the heat of the media coverage into believingthat profound “political” conflicts wereoccurring. However, closer examination revealsthat there was no serious momentum towardnational boycotts of the Games, and morenational Olympic committees (204) and nationalrepresentatives (over 100 “national dignitaries,”of which about 80 were “heads of state”) tookpart in the opening ceremony than in anyprevious Games. It was the first openingceremony attended by an American presidentoutside of the U.S. From my position as aFulbright Researcher in Beijing with regularcontact with the U.S. embassy, I felt that the Bushadministration strongly wanted these Games totake place and to be successful. Well-informedobservers such as He Zhenliang, China’s seniorIOC member and sports diplomat, felt that Sino-U.S. relations had been strengthened through theGames and perhaps had become closer than theyhad ever been since 1949.

As in Tokyo, soldiers had a large presence in theBeijing Olympics, including the participation of9,000 People’s Liberation Army soldiers in thecultural performance of the opening ceremony. The Chinese “riot police” (防暴警 , literally“violence-prevention police”), had high visibilityduring the Olympic Games. This is a category ofsecurity personnel whose domestic numbers andfunctions had been expanded in 2005, at the same

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time that China also started sending riot policeon U.N. peacekeeping missions. Clad in black,physically bigger (many are former wushu andjudo athletes), and more highly trained andeducated than the regular and armed police, theywere brought out in large numbers to protectsensitive locations in Beijing. Their training drillswere shown on CCTV in dramatic ways thatpromoted a positive image of them as anti-terrorist police ready to help evacuate a stadiumin case of a bomb or to secure the release ofinnocent spectators taken hostage. The riotpolice are more frequently deployed to controlthe local populace than to deal with terrorists –indeed, on the night of the opening ceremony Iwatched them clear out the crowd that hadgathered in the square at the central train stationto watch the opening ceremony on the big-screenTV, when the security personnel decided thecrowd was too big and the situation wasdangerous. However, the effect of the Olympiccoverage may have been similar to that describedby Tagsold for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces –their image was improved by linking them withkeeping the peace at the Olympics.

The author posing with a soldier guarding theVIP lane at the closing ceremony, following the

example of Chinese spectators.

One more point in Tagsold’s analysis is alsorelevant to Beijing. He observes that theplanning of the symbolism of the Tokyo

Olympics and the opening ceremonies was ledby the Ministry of Education, which controlledmost of the interpretation of national symbolsfrom 1959 onward.[9] Masumoto Naofumi hasrecently brought to the attention of Anglophonescholars the fact that formal educationalinitiatives related to the Olympic Games wereorganized outside of the organizing committeefor the first time in the context of the 1964 TokyoSummer Games.[10] Building on his work, Ihave argued that since that time there has beenan “East Asian stream” in the “OlympicEducation” initiatives that have surrounded theGames, which has been ignored by Eurocentricscholars.[11] From 1961 to 1964 the Ministry ofEducation distributed four Olympic readers andguidebooks to primary and secondary schoolsand colleges nationwide. Two books wereproduced by the organizing committee fordistribution to schoolteachers from 1960-61: 1,000copies of The Glorious Tokyo Olympics (130pages) were distributed in Kanto area schoolsand 1,000 copies of Olympic Facts & Figures forTeachers’ Use (36 pages) were distributed toschool teachers. In addition to school textbooksand school activities, the Ministry of Educationpromulgated the “Citizens’ Olympic GamesMovement” aimed at educating the people in thestreets about the Olympics, increasing nationalpride, and improving understanding of foreigncountries.[12]

The important role played by the JapaneseMinistry of Education is particularly illuminatingfor a comparison with the Beijing Olympics. With the support of the Chinese Ministry ofEducation, the Beijing Municipal EducationCommission in collaboration with the BeijingOlympic Committee for the Olympic Games(BOCOG) organized the largest OlympicEducation program ever implemented by a hostcity. When this effort began, the director of theeducational programs for the 1998 NaganoWinter Games was invited twice to Beijing forconsultation. Nagano’s “One School, OneCountry” sister school program was adopted

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(this program has been utilized in every summerand winter Olympics since 1998, excepting the2004 Athens Olympics). Beijing quickly farexceeded what Nagano had done - a source ofpride due to the rivalry with Japan. A total of200 primary and secondary schools in BeijingCity and another 356 schools nationwide wered e s i g n a t e d a s “ O l y m p i c E d u c a t i o nDemonstration Schools,” which were responsiblefor devoting at least two hours per month toOlympics-related activities, and for conducting“hand-in-hand sharing” activities with otherschools and the surrounding community. Thethird theme of the Beijing Olympics – the 人文奥运 (translated as “People’s Olympics” or“Humanistic Olympics”) also drew on theconcept of the 1964 “Citizen’s Olympic GamesMovement” but unfolded it on a much largerscale. China’s effort involved the mobilization of70,000 college students through the CommunistYouth League system as “Games-t imevolunteers” to help at all official Olympicvenues. Approximately 400,000 “city volunteers”were enlisted to staff 550 volunteer stations andmaintain social order throughout the city. Amultitude of cultural and educational activitiesfor the community were organized through thecentral Party Office of Spiritual CivilizationDevelopment and Guidance and its Beijingbranch.

In a recent article in China Quarterly, I developan argument about Beijing’s Olympic educationthat builds on Tagsold’s argument about theTokyo Olympics . [13] As in Japan, theeducational project was oriented towardimagining China taking its place in theinternational community. The content of theschool programs largely imparted knowledgeabout the world outside China, and in thisrespect it differed markedly from the inward-l o o k i n g f o c u s o f p r e v i o u s n a t i o n a leducational/propaganda campaigns. Westernobservers tended to dismiss Beijing’s Olympiceducation as just another nationalist propagandacampaign, but I believe they were missing the

important point: true, one major goal waspatriotic education – but as in Tokyo, the oldnationalist symbols were re-shaped byassociation with symbols of internationalism, theglobal community, and world peace. This is theparadox of the Olympic Games – they reinforcenationalism and internationalism at the sametime. Perhaps the national identity itself is notgreatly changed, but it is an important shift inorientation if the holders of that identity start tosee their nation as an equal partner amongfriendly nations instead of a victimized nationamong hostile nations.

International song and dress at the OlympicEducation Exhibition, May 2008. Photo by the

author.

One illustration of this point is a conversation Ihad with a Tsinghua University student who, asan Olympic volunteer, was standing beneath theflagpole when the Chinese flag was raised in theOlympic opening ceremony. He asked me what Ithought of Beijing’s Olympic education programs– didn’t I find that much of it was just a “show”by the government? I told him that while manyof the activities might be considered to be“appearance-ism,” I thought that teachingstudents that their country was taking its placeamong other nations as an equal, and that Chinawould no longer be “bullied” by other nations,would have an important effect on the studentsfor the future. He was silent for a moment, andthen confessed that when he saw the Chinese flag

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being raised in the stadium and heard the wildcheering of the crowd, he had gotten tears in hiseyes, and this had been the first time in his lifethat this had ever happened to him. From thisperspective, he agreed with my conclusion. Ourconversation took place during a dinner to whichI had been invited so that I could advise him onwhether to accept admission to the Master’sDegree programs at the Univers i ty ofPennsylvania or the University of SouthernCalifornia, with an eye to which city would offerbetter future employment opportunities.

The raising of the Chinese flag in the openingceremony. From BOCOG official website

(http://en.beijing2008.cn)

In sum, if the 1964 Games were a turning point inJapan’s peaceful reconciliation with theinternational community, we can probably pointto a similar outcome of the 2008 Beijing Games. On the other hand, the Tokyo Games, far fromeliminating past symbols of militarism and war,only re-oriented them. The same will likely betrue of the effect of the Beijing Games on theelements of revolution, socialism, Communistideology, and anti-Western sentiment that figureso large in Chinese national identity. Even as Iwrite this, the former director of Beijing city’sOlympic Education Office is working on a draftof a long-term plan being developed by theMinistry of Education – he has been assigned tothe section that deals with Marxist-Leninistthought and socialist morality. In both Japan andChina, the idea of national victimization at the

hands of the West remains, although in China itappeared that a change was finally starting. Inthe official rhetoric, the Beijing Games weresupposed to “erase the label of the Sick Man ofEast Asia” that had loomed in the Chineseimagination for over a century as an insultapplied to China by the West and Japan. YoungChinese told me that they recognized that theSick Man of East Asia was political rhetoric usedto stir up patriotism and that they did not thinkmuch about it themselves – although, as onecollege student put it, they would “never forgetthe history” that it represented.

If the political background of the TokyoOlympics was emotionally-charged, the lead-upto the 1988 Seoul Olympics involved outbreaks ofactual violence related to the games. On October8, 1979, President Park Chung-hee officiallyannounced the intention to bid for the OlympicGames; on October 26, he was assassinated at adinner party by the director of the CentralIntelligence Agency, and in 1980 General ChunDoo-hwan seized power in a military coup. InSeptember 1981, Seoul was selected as the hostcity by the IOC. In October 1983, a North Koreanassassination attempt on President Chun at theAung San National Cemetery in Rangoon killed14 South Korean officials. And then in 1987, lessthan a year before the Olympic Games, twoNorth Korean operatives left a bomb on KoreanAir #858, killing 115 people, including 93 SouthKoreans. The confession of the operative whosurvived despite eating a cyanide capsule statedthat the order was intended to disrupt the SeoulOlympic Games, and was personally penned byKim Jong-Il, now President of North Korea.[13] It was primarily because of this act that NorthKorea was l isted as a “State Sponsor ofTerrorism” by the U.S. State Department in 1988. It was not removed from the list until October 11,2008.

This history has since been overshadowed by thepositive recollection that the Olympics “broughtdemocracy” to South Korea when Roh Tae-woo

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assumed the presidency in 1987 through aconstitutional election and a promise ofdemocratic reforms. This rosy view of Olympichistory often neglects the subsequent events inwhich Chun and Roh were convicted of mutiny,treason, and bribery and blamed for the 1980Kwangju massacre of several hundred pro-democracy protesters.

There were many people, including IOCmembers and Chinese journalists, who wonderedif the Beijing Olympics could stimulate ademocratic transition in China like that attributedto the Seoul Olympics. If they were looking for adramatic change, they were disappointed. Butthere were key differences in China. Onedifference was the lack of a real external militarythreat. Jarol Manheim argues, based oninterviews with South Korean government andOlympic officials, that one hope of the ROKgovernment was that, by focusing worldattention on South Korea, the Olympics wouldincrease world awareness about the NorthKorean threat and purchase a form of insuranceagainst northern aggression.[14] It would appearthat the Games succeeded on both counts. In theanalysis of IOC member Dick Pound, it wasbecause of this “insurance” that the conservativemilitary stood back and allowed a democratictransition to begin before the Games had evenstarted; the military gained a sense of securityfrom the expressions of support for the Gamesissuing from both the U.S. and the Soviet Union,as well as other members of the socialist bloc.[15]

Unlike South Korea, in the past three decadesChina has experienced peaceful transitions ofpower in the midst of sweeping social andeconomic change, and there is currentlywidespread popular support for gradual insteadof dramatic political change. The Tibet uprisingsand the violent acts, or foiled intended acts, ofgroups classified as “terrorist” had an internalfunction similar to the external threat to SouthKorea; they strengthened the conservativeposition of the Chinese security system. It was

not clear to me how well the political historysurrounding the Seoul Olympics was known byintellectuals and policy-makers in China – but ifit were fully understood, I can imagine thatSouth Korea’s move toward democracy wouldserve as a counter-model because of the massivepopular demonstrations that accompanied it,while in China there is currently a strongaversion toward mass protests. This does not,however, mean that the same forces that pushedSouth Korea toward political reform were not atwork in China. Manheim’s interviewees believedthat the presence of the international media, thenegative image of South Korea it conveyed to theworld, and the legitimacy it conferred ondemonstrators and opposition politicians forcedthe ruling party to make significant politicalconcessions.[16] Global scrutiny of China in 2008was much greater and it does appear that thispressure had effects. The domestic pressure forgreater media freedom and governmenttransparency has increased over the last year, notjust because of the Olympics, but also because ofthe Wenchuan earthquake and the tainted milkscandal. Vibrant debates about China’s inabilityto effectively communicate a national image tothe outside world are now going on, and largegovernment investment is being made in foreigncommunications and public diplomacy. Thetemporary Olympic law that guaranteed morefreedom to foreign journalists was extendedindefinitely just as it expired on October 15. Ahigher level of organized dissidence incomparison with recent years was revealed whenC h a r t e r 0 8(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22210), adocument calling for political reform signed by303 Chinese intellectuals and activists, wasinitiated in late spring 2008 and publicly issuedin December 2008. The Information Office of theState Council published its first Human RightsA c t i o n P l a n(http://www.china.org.cn/archive/2009-04/13/content_17595407.htm) in April. China ischanging but only greater distance will allow usto look back and assess it.

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Tagsold’s essay describes the rise of the anti-Olympic movement in Japan called “trops”(“sport” spelled backwards). The opposition toNagoya’s bid for the 1988 Summer Games was awake-up call for the IOC, which has givenincreasing attention to environmental issues inthe ensuing years. In China in 2008, sportsscholars frequently stated that the 1964 TokyoOlympic Games gave rise to an “anti-Olympicmovement” in Japan (apparent ly notunderstanding that the movement did not reallyemerge until 1988), and they felt that this mightalso occur in China. A 2002 article in 体育学刊[Journal of Physical Education] introduced thetrops concept to China, but described it asadvocacy for popular sport as opposed to theOlympics, and did not mention its environmentalconnection.[17] While popular protests againstrapacious development and environmentaldestruction have been cropping up all overChina, and were occasionally linked to theBeijing Games, it did not appear that anorganized anti-Olympic movement evercongealed. Censorship regulations promulgatedby the Central Propaganda Department beforeand during the Games restricted the publicationand broadcasting of criticism of the OlympicGames, which might cause one to suspect thatany incipient anti-Olympic movement wassquelched, and that the shape of public opinionin China might be similar to that in Japan in 1988if people were allowed to openly criticize theOlympics. However, closer analysis reveals thatthe underlying issues were different in Chinacompared to Japan. Japan’s trops movement hasthrived in a context in which there has been astrong political will to host Olympic Games,which has aroused the opposition of citizen’sgroups. Altogether, Japanese cities have putforward five unsuccessful and four successfulbids for Olympic Games, including Tokyo’ssuccessful bid for the 1940 Summer Olympics,later rescinded; Tokyo’s unsuccessful bid for the1960 Summer Olympics and successful bid forthe 1964 Olympics; Sapporo’s unsuccessful bidsfor the 1968 and 1984 Winter Games; Nagoya’s

bid against Seoul for the 1988 Summer Olympics;Osaka’s bid against Beijing for the 2008 Games(revealing a lack of solidarity in the East Asianbloc within the IOC); Sapporo’s successful bid forthe 1976 Winter Games; and Nagano’s successfulbid for the 1998 Winter Games. As discussed inBill Kelly’s accompanying essay, Tokyo iscurrently bidding for the 2016 SummerOlympics. Japan’s repeated bids, and the massiveurban development projects proposed in theTokyo 2016 bid, seem to indicate that themomentum toward organizing Olympic Gamesin association with large-scale development ismore powerful than the anti-Olympic and pro-environment movements. Japan has alsoviolated customs of bloc voting within the IOCand sacrificed East Asian solidarity for itsOlympic bids. Similarly, a forthcoming chapterby James Thomas based on his fieldwork amongurban squatters in Seoul in 1988 concludes thatthe Seoul Olympics enticed Korean citizens tosupport the state’s grandiose developmentprogram by linking it with a “new empowerednationalism;” he observes that even after ex-presidents Chun and Roh were imprisoned anddiscredited, the Olympics-inspired developmentprogram continued.[18]

Demolition along Wangfujing Street, Beijing,

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May 2008

It may be that the Beijing Games will initiate aperiod of regular bids for Olympic Games. I wasin Shanghai in November 2008, wherepreparations for the 2010 World Expo areramping up now that the Olympics are over, andthe mood in the municipal government iscurrently positive toward a future Olympic bid. However, when Chinese scholars refer to an anti-Olympics movement, they refer to opposition tothe state-supported sport system and thegovernment’s neglect of popular and schoolsport. In 1964 Japan placed third in the goldmedal count and in 1988 South Korea placedfourth, their highest placements of all time. Chinese sportspeople believed that their firstplace in their own Olympics might also be thepeak of China’s state-supported sport system,and that the pursuit of gold medals might bedowngraded after the Games and more attentiongiven to school and recreational sport. TheD i r e c t o r o f t h e S t a t e S p o r t G e n e r a lAdministration, Liu Peng, took a preemptivestance immediately after the Olympic Games inan interview in the People’s Daily on September6, stating, “Our position on the state-supportedsport system is clear: One, we will maintain it;two, we will perfect it.”[19] But the debates aboutthe future of the state-supported system are stillgoing on.

Motivated by rivalry with China and SouthKorea, the Japanese government established aNational Training Center in 2000 and a system ofsubsidies for top athletes in 2003, leading to afifth-place finish in the gold medal count at the2004 Athens Olympics, the first time that it haddefeated Korea (ninth) in the gold medal countsince the 1988 Seoul Olympics – and also the firsttime that China, Japan, and South Korea had allfinished in the top ten (excepting the socialistbloc-boycotted 1984 Olympics). When Germanyfound its sixth-place finish behind Japanunacceptable, it initiated the revival of several ofthe former East German sports schools.[20] In

addition to Germany and Japan, a number ofother sport superpowers were shamed by theirperformance in Athens, and their governments increased funding for sport, including Russia,Australia, and Great Britain; the British OlympicAssociation is currently pressing for greaterfunding on the premise that it, like China, shouldmake a good showing at its own Olympic Gamesin 2012. In Beijing, Great Britain redeemed itsnational honor with an unexpected fourth (upfrom ninth), Germany climbed back into fifthplace, Australia dropped to sixth (from fourth),South Korea surprised in seventh, and Japanslipped to eighth – due in part to South Korea’sgold medal in baseball, which added salt toJapan’s wound. Among the sport superpowersof the world, the U.S. is an anomaly in its lack ofdirect government investment in sport, sincemost American Olympians are cultivated in thecollegiate sport system, a structure that is uniqueto the U.S. The U.S. Olympic Committee’s(USOC) investment in sport is only a minisculepart of the American sport infrastructure. Abouthalf of the USOC’s 600 million-dollar operatingbudget in the last Olympiad came from a long-term contract with the IOC that grants about 13%of U.S. Olympic television rights fees and 20% ofOlympic Top Programme marketing revenue tothe USOC, which is greater than the percentageallotted to the other 204 national Olympiccommittees combined. In 2008 resentment beganto boil over in the IOC and among the othernational Olympic committees, who felt that theU.S. government was avoiding its moralobligation to fund national sport by essentiallyskimming profit off the Olympics that should beshared more equitably with other countries. TheUSOC and IOC are currently at a standoff, andthe re-negotiation of the contract has beenpostponed until economic conditions are morefavorable. Government investment in Olympicsport seems to be on the increase worldwide,stimulated in part by China’s rise as a sportsuperpower. This Chinese model is itselfstimulated by East Asian Olympic rivalriesfueled by Japan and its memories of the 1964

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Olympics as a turning point in Japan’s statusamong nations.

In sum, when we carefully reexamine the 1964and 1988 Olympics, it is surprising that weremember them today as turning points in thepeaceful integration of Japan and South Koreainto the global community. Why would “peace”be associated with these events so clearlyconnected with political upheaval and war? Inthe popular memory at home and abroad,probably the outstanding organization of theceremonial pageantry and the sports eventsthemselves worked their magic to leave lastingmemories segregated from the surroundingpolitics. In the academic analysis, symbols ofnational pride that had been born in war andemphasized collective sacrifice in the struggle forsurvival among hostile nations were resituatedwithin the pursuit of individual excellence andhealth, in peaceful interaction with a friendlyoutside world. Perhaps as the heated emotionssurrounding the Beijing Olympics fade into thedistance, these Games will look similar to theirEast Asian predecessors in hindsight.

Susan Brownell is Chair of the Department ofAnthropology and Languages at the Universityof Missouri-St. Louis. She is the author ofBeijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean toC h i n a(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0742556417/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2008) and the editor of The1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games:Sport, Race and American Imperialism(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0803210981/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2008), winner of the 2009North American Society for Sport HistoryAnthology Award in Sport History.

Recommended Citation: Susan Brownell, “TheBeijing Olympics as a Turning Point? China’sFirst Olympics in East Asian Perspective” TheAsia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 23-4-09, June 8, 2009.

See the other articles in this series: PlayingPolitics with the East Asian Olympics, 1964-2016:

W i l l i a m W . K e l l y , I n t r o d u c t i o n(http://japanfocus.org/-William_W_-Kelly/3164)

Christian Tagsold, The 1964 Tokyo Olympics asP o l i t i c a l G a m e s(http://japanfocus.org/-Christian-Tagsold/3165)

William W. Kelly, Asia Pride, China Fear, TokyoAnxiety: Japan Looks Back at 2008 Beijing andForward to 2012 London and 2016 Tokyo(http://japanfocus.org/-William_W_-Kelly/3167)

Notes

[1] Geremie R. Barmé, “Painting over Mao: Noteson the Inauguration of the Beijing OlympicGames,” posted on China Beat August 12, 2008;reprinted in Kate Merkel-Hess, Kenneth L.Pomeranz, and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, eds.,China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance(Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p.172; Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, “What Would MaoThink of the Games,” posted on thenation.com,August 22, 2008; reprinted in China in 2008, pp.179-82.

[2] Liang Lijuan, He Zhenliang and China’sOlympic Dream, translated by Susan Brownell(Beijing Foreign Languages Press, 2007), pp.333-55.

[3] Susan Brownell, Training the Body for China:Sports in the Moral Order of the People’sRepublic (Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress, 1995), pp. 60-62, 315-18.

[4] 2008年北京奥运会的人文理念、社会价值与国家文化形象构建研究报告[“Research Report onthe Construction of the Humanistic Concept,Social Value and National Image of the 2008Beijing Olympic Games”], National Social

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Sciences Foundation Major Project #06&ZD007,People’s University, Beijing (project initiated in2006, final report published in 2008), p. 194.

[5] Haksoon Yim, “Cultural Identity and CulturalPolicy in South Korea,” The International Journalof Cultural Policy, Vol. 8 (1)(2002), p. 46.

[6] Shimizu Satoshi, “Reconsidering theSignificance of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics -Forgotten Historical Memories of East Asia,Modernization, Tokyo and Athletes,” paperpresented at the conference on “The Olympics inEast Asia: Nationalism, Regionalism, andGlobalism on the Center Stage of World Sports,”Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities andSocial Sciences, Hong Kong University, March15, 2008; Christian Tagsold, “Turning SportUpside Down in Japan: From Sports Mega-Events to the Trops Movement,” paper presentedat the conference on “The Olympics in East Asia:Nationalism, Regionalism, and Globalism on theCenter Stage of World Sports,” Yale University,October 3, 2008; Jilly Traganou, “Design andNational Identity in the Olympic Games ofGreece, Japan, China,” paper presented at theconference “From Athens to Beijing: West MeetsEast in the Olympic Games,” InternationalOlympic Academy, Ancient Olympia, Greece,May 24, 2008.

[7] Shimizu, “Reconsidering the Significance ofthe 1964 Tokyo Olympics,” p. 4.

[8] Christian Tagsold, “The Tôkyô Olympics as aToken of Renationalization,” in Andreas Niehausand Max Seinsch, eds., Olympic Japan: Ideals andRealities of (Inter)Nationalism (Würzburg:Ergon, 2007); Tagsold, Die Inszenierung derkulturellen Identität in Japan. Das Beispiel derOlympischen Spiele Tôkyô 1964 [The Productionof Cultural Identity in Japan: the Case of theTokyo 1964 Olympic Games](Munich: Iudicium,2002).

[9] Tagsold, “The Tôkyô Olympics as a Token ofRenationalization,” p.118.

[10] Masumoto Naofumi, “Creating Identity –Olympic Education in Japan,” in AndreasNiehaus and Max Seinsch, eds., Olympic Japan:Ideals and Realities of (Inter)Nationalism(Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2007).

[11] Brownell, Susan, “Western-centrism inOlympic Studies and its Consequences in the2008 Beijing Olympics,” Earle F. ZeiglerCommemorative Address delivered before theinternational conference, “Pathways: Critiquesand Discourse in Olympic Research,” organizedby the International Centre for Olympic Studiesof the University of Western Ontario at theCapitol Institute of Physical Education, Beijing,A u g u s t 7 , 2 0 0 8 [ w i l l b e a v a i l a b l e a twww.LA84foundation.org]; Susan Brownell, “论北京模式奥林匹克教育 - 东方特色，发展中国家模式 ,” [“On the Beijing Model of OlympicEducation – Eastern Characteristics, A Model forD e v e l o p i n g N a t i o n s ” ]《教育科学研究》[Education Science], vol. 12(2007): 18-20.

[12] Tagsold, “The Tôkyô Olympics as a Token ofRenationalization,” pp. 126-27.

[12] Susan Brownell, “Beijing’s OlympicEducation Program: Re-Thinking SuzhiEducation, Re-Imagining China’s Future,” ChinaQuarterly 197(March 2009): 44-63.

[13] Ok Gwang and Ha Nam-Gil, “Beyond AllBarriers: The Significance of the 1988 SeoulOlympics.” Paper presented at the conference on“The Olympics in East Asia: Nationalism,Regionalism, and Globalism on the Center Stageof World Sports,” Yale University, October 3,2008.

[14] Jarol B. Manheim, “Rites of Passage: The1988 Seoul Olympics as Public Diplomacy,” TheWestern Political Quarterly 43(2)(1990), pp.291-93.

[15] Richard W. Pound, Five Rings over Korea:The Secret Negotiations Behind the 1988 OlympicGames in Seoul (Boston and New York: Little,

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Brown, 1994), pp. 320-23.

[16] Manheim, “Rites of Passage,” p. 291.

[17] 吴忠义 [Wu Zhongyi]，高彩云 [GaoCaiyun], “我国TROPS 运动的理论建构与实践”[“Theory Construction and DevelopmentTrend of TROPS Movement in China”]《体育学刊》[Journal of Physical Education] 9(3)(May2 0 0 2 ) : 9 - 1 1 . http://www.chinatyxk.com/editer/doc/20068716355028346.pdf

[18] James P. Thomas, “The 1988 Seoul Gamesand the Legacies of an Olympic Regime,” inWilliam Tsutsui and Michael Baskett, eds.,forthcoming volume based on the conference

“Olympia Desires: Building Bodies and Nationsin East Asia,” University of Kansas, April 10-12,2008.

[19] 许立群 [Xu Liqun], “国家体育总局局长刘鹏：举国体制要坚持要完善” [“Liu Peng, Director ofthe State Sport General Administration: TheState-Supported Sport System will be maintainedand perfected”], 人民日报 [People’s Daily],S e p t e m b e r 6 , 2 0 0 8 ,http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/7830416.html.

[20] Johnson, Ian, “The New Gold War,” WallStreet Journal, August 2, 2008, Page A1,http://s.wsj.net/public/article_print/SB121763204928806141.html.

(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0742556417/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)

(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0803210981/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)

Click on the covers

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above to order.