China, Politik, Ideologie.

The Politicisation of Sport in Modern China: Communist and Champions is the first book in English which examines in chronological order key issues in sport in the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 2012 in the context of Chinese history, politics and society. It explores the complexity of Chinese sport including the sovietisation of Chinese sports policy and practice; the emergence of the ‘two Chinas’ issue; the Cold War, the Cultural Revolution, sports diplomacy and sports militarism; China’s turbulent journey of participation in the Asian Games and in the Olympics; the politics and policy of doping and anti-doping in Chinese sport; and China’s sport in the post-Beijing Olympics era. By analysing the relationships between sport, diplomacy, politics and social transformation in China, the book examines how sport has played an important role in China’s rise in the 20th and 21st centuries, and how China embraced the Olympic Movement and also influenced the world through the Olympic Games. Featuring major events, original documents and interviews with a wide breadth of insiders - from sports policy makers, Olympic medallists and ordinary Chinese - this book, for the first time, provides a comprehensive guide to the history of sport in the People's Republic of China. It is a fascinating book for academic researchers, general readers and students. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Acknowledging China’s established status as a global sporting superpower, this is the first book to systematically investigate sport policy in that country. With a focus on sport development in the most recent three decades, Sport Policy in China explores a wide range of topics in Chinese sport, including elite sport development, professional sports, major sports events, sport for all, the political context within which sport is interiorised and the distinctive sporting status of Hong Kong. It examines the debates around policy, globalisation, diplomacy and soft power, as well as the significance of the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. With international appeal, this book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of sport policy, sport management, sport development and sport sociology.

Across the modern political spectrum, left-wing and right-wing political theorists have invested sport with ideological significance. That significance, however, varies distinctively and characteristically with the ideology—a phenomenon John Hoberman terms "ideological differentiation." Taking this phenomenon as its point of departure, this provocative work interprets the major sport ideologies of the twentieth century as distinct expressions of political doctrine. Hoberman argues that a political ideology's interpretation of sport is shaped in part by the value it assigns to work and play as modes of experience; the political anthropologies of right and left can be distinguished by examining their resistance to—or affinity for—sportive imagery of their leaders and of the state itself; there exists a fascist temperament that shows an affinity to athleticism and the sphere of the body that is not shared by the left. Tracing modern sport ideology back to its premodern antecedents, Hoberman examines the interpretations of sport that have been promulgated by European political intellectuals, such as cultural conservatives and contemporary neo-Marxists, and by the official ideologists of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, and China before and after Mao. As a form of mass theater, sport can advertise any ideology. But the deeper relationship between sport and political ideology has never before been explored wth such vigor. Presenting the first general theory of sport and political ideology to appear in any language, Hoberman's groundbreaking work is a unique and invaluable contribution to the intellectual and political history of sport in the twentieth century.

This book examines the formation of a globally oriented sports system in China, from the beginning of the reform process in 1978 to the present, focusing on the period after the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. It analyses how this system has shaped domestic social class identities and its role in international Chinese state politics. Despite advances in the marketization of the sports industry through previous eras, the Chinese state expanded investment in a set of global sports following the heavily government-directed drive towards national success at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. This would be a time when the government focused on policies set to service a growing domestic middle-class and an increasingly wide-ranging set of international interests, with sporting investments being at the heart of their strategic plan. However, reform has proven difficult. The book presents a well-rounded account of this effort with tennis and soccer providing important case studies of the internal and external dynamics of this time. As such, the book will be of interest to researchers and students of globalization of sport, those studying East Asian sports development, and those who are interested in understanding China more broadly.

Written by a team of international scholars, Sport and Nationalism in Asia - Power, Politics, and Identity is a collection of original research which addresses a number of issues central to notions of nationalism and identity in sport including: how the Olympics and other international and regional sports events have fostered an active interweaving of sport, politics and nationalism; the role of traditional sport in the building of national consciousness and national identity; the way modern sport creates and reflects nationalism, thereby giving it a voice and a focus. The book covers eight case studies on countries/regions across West Asia, Central Asia and East Asia. It is one of the few works that examines the relationships between sport, politics and nationalism from Asian perspective. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

This book vividly elucidates the inseparable nature between politics and sport in China. The holding of sporting mega-events is viewed by the Chinese authorities as a prominent way to push forward the Reform and Opening up, arouse the patriotism among the public, and display national resurgence in the world. Chinese cities thus have keenly quested for the Olympics, the Asian Games and the World University Games since the 1980s. Theoretically, the President, the Premier and the central government should provide all-out support, so boosting the Chinese cities’ odds of success. The reality yet shows that their attitude towards the bids vary from case to case. Through reviewing the 20 bidding cases, this book aims to demystify the reasons behind. The findings provide an in-depth account of (1) how domestic and international political factors determine the state leaders’ blessing and silence as well as the central government’s backing, indifference and opposition, and (2) how the bids for the sporting mega-events are used to serve the broader political goals of the Chinese authorities at home and abroad. Additionally, they shed light on the political strategies to boost the Chinese cities’ chance of success, and the political reasons for their win, loss and discontinuation, in the bidding contests. The book will be a valuable resource for researches interested in the domestic politics and international relations of China.