Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of tables -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Modern Chinese nation, nationalism, national identity and sport -- 2 The origin and development of the National Games in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, 1910-1948 -- 3 Governance of sport and the National Games in the PRC, 1949-1979 -- 4 The National Games and China's Olympic Strategy in the post-1980s -- 5 The National Games and national identity in China -- Appendices -- Index.

The history of China's National Games reflects both the transformation of elite sport in China and wider Chinese society. This is the first book to describe the origins and development of the National Games through their dynamic relationship with Chinese politics, nationalism and identity in the modern era. Looking specifically at the role of the National Games in China's changing social, political and economic circumstances from 1910 to 2009, this book uncovers how the National Games reflected the shifts in state-led nationalist ideologies within three historical eras: the late Qing Dynasty and Republican China (1910-1948), the early People's Republic of China (1959-1979) and the People's Republic of China in the post-1980s (1983-2009). It also examines how the National Games were reformed to serve China's Olympic Strategy in the context of globalization and commercialization from the 1980s onwards. Full of original insights into archive material, each chapter sheds new light on the social, cultural and political significance of this sporting mega-event in the shaping of modern China. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the politics, history and culture of China.

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 examines the relationships between sport, nationalism and nation building in China. By exploring the last 150 years of Chinese history, it offers unparalleled depth and breadth of coverage and provides a clear grasp of Chinese sports nationalism from both macro and micro perspectives. Beginning with a discussion on the role of sport in the Qing Dynasty’s Self-Strengthening Movement (1861-1895), the book examines how sport contributed to the shaping of the early forms of Chinese nationalism in the late 19th century. It identifies and defines the core functions of sport in the Chinese Nationalist Revolution which successfully transformed China from a culturally bound empire to a modern nation state in 1911. The following section, on the Republic of China Era (1912-1949), explores the interactions between sport and the construction of Chinese nationalism and national consciousness, illustrating how sport played its part in the building of the newly established nation state. Moving on to the Communist China Era (1949-present), the book scans the whole spectrum of both modern and contemporary Chinese nationalism and interprets the most important issues on the course of China’s nation building, explaining why sport is so tightly bound up with nationalism and patriotism, and how sport became an essential part of nationalists', politicians' and educationalists' strategy to revive the Chinese nation.

In China today skyscrapers tower over ancient temples, freeways deliver lines of cars and tour buses to imperial palaces, cinema houses compete with old theaters featuring Peking Opera. The disparity evidenced in the contemporary Chinese cityscape can be traced to the early decades of the twentieth century, when government elites sought to transform cities into a new world that would be at once modern and distinctly Chinese. Remaking the Chinese City aims to capture the full diversity of recent Chinese urbanism by examining the modernist transformations of China's cities in the first half of the twentieth century. Collecting in one place some of the most interesting and exciting new work on Chinese urban history, this volume presents thirteen essays discussing ten Chinese cities: the commercial and industrial center of Shanghai; the old capital, Beijing; the southern coastal city of Canton; the interior's Chengdu; the tourist city of Hangzhou; the utopian "New Capital" built in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation; the treaty port of Tianjin; the Nationalists' capital in Nanjing; and temporary wartime capitals of Wuhan and Chongqing. Unlike past treatments of early twentieth-century China, which characterize the period as one of failure and decay, the contributors to this volume describe an exciting world in constant and fundamental change. During this time, the Chinese city was remade to accommodate parks and police, paved roads and public spaces. Rickshaws, trolleys, and buses allowed the growth of new downtowns. Department stores, theaters, newspapers, and modern advertising nourished a new urban identity. Sanitary regulations and traffic laws were enforced, and modern media and transport permitted unprecedented freedoms. Yet despite their fondness for things Western and modern, early urban planners envisioned cities that would lead the Chinese nation and preserve Chinese tradition. The very desire for modernity led to the construction of a visible and accessible national past and the imagining of a distinctive national future. In their investigation of the national capitals of the period, the essays show how cities were reshaped to represent and serve the nation. To promote tourism, traditions were invented and recycled for the pleasure and edification of new middle-class and foreign consumers of culture. Abundantly illustrated with maps and photographs, Remaking the Chinese City presents the best and most current scholarship on modern Chinese cities. Its thoroughness and detailed scholarship will appeal to the specialist, while its clarity and scope will engage the general reader. Contributors: Michael Tsin on Canton, Ruth Rogaski and Brett Sheehan on Tianjin, David Buck on Changchun, Kristin Stapleton on Chengdu, Liping Wang on Hangzhou, Madeleine Dong on Beijing, Charles Musgrove on Nanjing, Stephen MacKinnon on Wuhan, Lee MacIsaac on Chongqing, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom and David Strand with concluding essays.

"East Asia is increasingly prominent within global sport. In the short period between 2018 and 2022 it will have held two Winter and one Summer Olympics, and the Rugby World Cup for good measure. This is not a sudden development. It has been in train for some time, although many scholars, especially in Europe and North America, have been focussed primarily on sport in their own countries and regions. J.A. Mangan, who for decades has been looking closely at sport in East Asia while encouraging others to do likewise, has made a major contribution to knowledge and understanding of a once under-appreciated subject. This excellent collection in his honour analyses the key interwoven elements of sport, media and nation in China, Japan and South Korea. It demonstrates how the structure and practice of sport connects in myriad ways with its representation, not least with regard to national narratives, international rivalries and transnational trends. It is a book that does signal justice both to East Asian Studies and to the academic who recognised the importance of sport to that field, and who has done so much to ensure that the region is centrally placed within any contemporary analysis of the world of sport." David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University "Professor Mangan is the master dissector of the connections between sport and politics, geopolitics and nationalism across multiple Asian contexts. A collection of essays in honour of his long service to academic understandings of these fields is well deserved, and the editors and contributors to this volume have served up a worthy tribute. Showcasing new work by a stellar cast of China, Japan and Korea experts, in combination the papers collected here yield valuable insights into the issues of nation building, identity, media representation and sport which have been the subject of Professor Mangan's pioneering work over the past several decades. No one has done more to put East Asia on the map in terms of academic research on the manifold socio-political dimensions of sport, and this superbly constructed volume orchestrated by rising Tianwei Ren confirms that we neglect this fascinating, complex region at our peril." Jonathan Sullivan, Director of China Policy Institute and China Soccer Observatory, Associate Professor, School of Politics and IR. University of Nottingham

Written by a team of international scholars from China, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK, this book provides interdisciplinary studies on the construction and transformation of Chinese national identity in the age of globalisation. It addresses a wide range of issues central to national identity in the context of Chinese culture, politics, economy and society, and explores a diverse set of topics including the formation of an embryonic form of national identity in the late Qing era, the influence of popular culture on national identity, globalisation and national identity, the interaction and discourse between ethnic identity and national identity, and identity construction among overseas Chinese. It highlights the latest developments in the field and offers a distinctive contribution to our knowledge and understanding of national identity. ​