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The Olympic Games As a Political Tool: Case Study Beijing 2008

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The Olympic Games As a Political Tool: Case Study Beijing 2008 MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES Department of International Relations and European Studies Field: International Relations The Olympic Games as a Political Tool: Case Study Beijing 2008 Bachelor thesis Andrea Bittnerová Thesis supervisor: Ing. Mgr. Richard Turcsányi UČO: 397711 Field of study: International Relations, European Studies Matriculation year: 2011 Brno, 2014 I hereby declare that I have written this thesis individually and by only using sources which are stated at the end of this work in the list of references. …………………………………….. Brno, May 7, 2014 1 Acknowledgment First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Ing. Mgr. Richard Turcsányi, for his valuable advice and offering different approaches to be taken into account in my thesis. He has been more than helpful since the beginning and I am very grateful for any suggestions that helped me during my writing. I would also like to thank my mother, who has always been supportive of everything I have done during my life and has never stopped believing in me. 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 4 2. Reasons for hosting the Olympic Games ........................................................................ 7 3. Controversies ................................................................................................................... 10 3.1 Protests ....................................................................................................................... 10 3.2 Human rights ............................................................................................................. 11 4. Legacies ............................................................................................................................ 13 Case study: Beijing 2008 ........................................................................................................ 16 5. Reasons for hosting ......................................................................................................... 16 6. Controversies ................................................................................................................... 19 6.1 Foreign protests and responses .................................................................................. 19 6.1.1 Torch relay ......................................................................................................... 20 6.2 Human rights ............................................................................................................. 22 7. Chinese political strategies ............................................................................................. 24 7.1 Opening ceremony ..................................................................................................... 24 8. Legacies ............................................................................................................................ 27 8.1 Uncertain position in the international field .............................................................. 27 8.2 Consolidated nationalism and high level of government‟s legitimacy ...................... 29 8.3 Minimum change in human rights policy .................................................................. 32 8.4 Physical legacies ........................................................................................................ 33 8.5 Whose success? ......................................................................................................... 34 9. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 37 References ............................................................................................................................... 41 3 1. Introduction For over one century, The Olympic Games have been the most popular sport event and the highlight for all the successful athletes and entertainment for millions of spectators. Every four years, each participating country might become more nationalistic due to cheering for their representatives and consequently being proud of gained medals. According to Hoberman (2008), the Olympics were founded to bridge cultural divides and promote peace. “The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries. Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement. The International Olympic Committee (the IOC) should oppose any political or commercial abuse of sport and athletes, to promote a positive legacy for host cities and host countries” (The IOC 2013a, 9-21). However, as much as the IOC, host and participating countries try to act as non-political to the whole world and defend the apolitical nature of the Games, when prospective host cities hand in their applications, a very political process starts. Countries today use this largest sport event as a political tool for both domestic and foreign policy in order to show their country to the advantage, their development and they also have high hopes in many positive legacies, especially long-lasting ones, such as economic growth, strengthened nationalism or more significant role in the international field. The tool may be believed to be a result of today‟s globalized world. Nevertheless, exploiting the Olympics for other, non-sport related reasons dates back to the early years, as seen in the case of the Berlin Olympics in 1936, where Hitler tried to legitimize the Nazi regime. On the way to holding the event, host countries are in the constant spotlight of the IOC, participating countries, NGOs and media. They very often, in case of controversial hosts, try to eliminate human rights abuses (e. g. forced evictions due to building of stadiums) or criticize the country‟s regime. China is a perfect example of such a controversial host country. It may not be exaggerated to say that the Chinese Olympics had the highest expectations in the recent history and China was very well aware of that. It considered the Games as a great opportunity to present its emerging economy to the world, how developed it was and that everybody should regard it as a major international player. It was also supposed to serve for domestic policy reasons, such as bringing more people into sports, new infrastructure or consolidating nationalism. During the course of preparations, many other actors, for instance 4 NGOs or other countries used the Beijing Olympics for pointing at political issues. Therefore, the Beijing Games will serve as a case study of this thesis. One of the major motivations for writing this thesis is looking at the topic from another perspective than it is probably mostly viewed of, its contemporary nature and its lack of studies in the academic arena. Interestingly enough, as Cha (2009) points out, the connection between politics and sports has not yet been extensively studied. Although international sport is clearly a field where different nations and individuals interact and it has been a relevant area for a long time, the literature written on the topic is surprisingly rare. What is more, the literature on legacies of the 2008 Beijing Games is even rarer, but this might be due to its recent holding. The thesis aims to analyse the Olympic Games as a tool for both domestic and foreign policy of a host country. It will be divided into two parts – a general introduction to the topic and the case study of the 2008 Beijing Games. The first part will present reasons for hosting the Olympics and controversies which can harm the way to achieving them caused by various actors, such as NGOs or other countries. Lastly, legacies which the Games bring will be described. Numerous actions from the history of the Olympics will serve as examples. The second part of the thesis will present a case study of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Concepts from the first part will be applied to see how China fits into discovered information, and the process of the Games as well as legacies will be analysed in detail. It is expected that the Chinese example will stand out among other Olympics. The thesis will try to answer a question: What legacies do the Olympic Games bring to the host nation? Legacies should be understood as tangible (new infrastructure, green spaces) and intangible (strengthened nationalism) as well as positive (gaining knowledge from organizing the event) or negative (terrorist attacks). Evaluating legacies is important because it reveals whether goals which a host country wanted to achieve were fulfilled and thus the event could have been proclaimed as successful. Moreover, legacies are something that can remain in the host nation for both short and long time and have an impact on both domestic and foreign policies. The research question will be answered by looking into the initial goals which host countries set and whether they, in the final, do fulfil them. Moreover, it will be discussed what controversies make it difficult for the host countries to achieve those goals, meaning what actors stand in the desired smooth way leading to holding the event. The case study will also reflect the same question and will follow the same path of finding the answer. All these issues will be answered by studying academic articles. However, information provided by the IOC, NGOs websites and public opinion
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