Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008
Olympic Dreams ★ Olympic Dreams China and Sports 1895–2008 # # # # Xu Guoqi Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2008 Copyright © 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Xu, Guoqi. Olympic dreams : China and sports, 1895–2008 / Xu Guoqi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-02840-1 (alk. paper) 1. Sports—China—History. 2. Sports—Political aspects—China. I. Title. II. Title: China and sports, 1895–2008. GV651.X78 2008 796.0951—dc22 2007 041329 To my two great teachers, Akira Iriye and Yang Shengmao Contents Foreword by William C. Kirby ix Note on Romanization xii Introduction 1 1. Strengthening the Nation with Warlike Spirit 12 2. Reimagining China through International Sports 35 3. Modern Sports and Nationalism in China 55 4. The Two-China Question 75 5. The Sport of Ping-Pong Diplomacy 117 6. The Montreal Games: Politics Challenge the Olympic Ideal 164 7. China Awakens: The Post-Mao Era 197 8. Beijing 2008 225 Conclusion 265 Notes 275 Selected Glossary 321 Selected Bibliography 325 Acknowledgments 355 Illustration Credits 361 Index 363 Foreword Why are sports important? Why does Boston collectively rise, fall, then rise again with the fate of the Red Sox? How have Yao Ming, the NBA star, and Chien-Ming Wang, the Yankees pitcher, come to be national heroes in the People’s Republic and Taiwan, respectively, even though they ply their (quite different) trades an ocean away? And how have the Olym- pic Games, created to promote the ideal of international sportsmanship, become such a lightning rod for demonstrations of nationalist pride? There are no simple answers to these questions, but with the 2008 Beijing Olympics at hand, it is an opportune moment to address the politi- cal history of sport in modern China.
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