Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia

Contemporary Asia in the World

by Victor Cha

The Beijing Olympics will be remembered as the largest, most expensive, and most widely watched event of the modern Olympic era. But did China present itself as a responsible host and an emergent international power, much like Japan during the 1964 Tokyo Games and South Korea during the 1988 Seoul Games? Or was Beijing in 2008 more like Berlin in 1936, when Germany took advantage of the global spotlight to promote its political ideology at home and abroad?

Beyond the Final Score takes an original look at the 2008 Beijing games within the context of the politics of sport in Asia. Asian athletics are bound up with notions of national identity and nationalism, refracting political intent and the processes of globalization. Sporting events can generate diplomatic breakthroughs (as with the results of Nixon and Mao's "ping-pong diplomacy") or breakdowns (as when an athlete defects to another country). For China, the Beijing Games introduced a liberalizing ethos that its authoritative regime could ignore only at its peril.

Victor D. Cha—former director of Asian affairs for the White House—evaluates Beijing's contention with this pressure considering the intense scrutiny China already faced on issues of counterproliferation, global warming, and free trade. He begins with the arguments that tie Asian sport to international affairs and follows with an explanation of athletics as they relate to identity, diplomacy, and transformation. Enhanced by Cha's remarkable facility with the history and politics of sport, Beyond the Final Score is the definitive examination of the events—both good and bad—that took place during the Beijing Olympics.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2008

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle on this book is totally wrong - it was not about a North Korean camp survivor. It was, however, about the role that sports play in international and Asian politics (mostly China, Japan and the Koreas).

It was jam-packed with info. I learned a lot about the Cold War, the Korean War, the Cultural Revolution, Chinese human rights abuses, Japan's imperialist past and relations between North and South Korea. My main critique is that much of this knowledge was assumed on the part of the author so I spent a great deal of my time reading this book with Wikipedia open on my computer. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and perhaps it says more about me as a reader (nerd alert!) than the author's presentation of information. And, like I said, I learned a lot so I really shouldn't complain.

I think the author's main points were strong. Sport is not neutral. Sport is used as a tool of national governments to create/promote a national identity, to create diplomatic breakthroughs, and to improve infrastructure. Sport is also used by activists and advocates to create policy changes. The international spotlight of sporting mega-events is a perfect opportunity for nations to show off and for dissenters to call these same nations on their bullshit.

I don't know if I'd assign this book again - but I would definitely use the ideas to structure my own presentation of material.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for a Global History of Sport class, well-researched and made good use of anecdotes