Beyond the final score : the politics of sport in Asia / Victor D. Cha.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [161]-173) and index.

1. Purism Versus Politics -- 2. The Argument -- 3. More Than Just National Pride -- 4. Greasing the Wheels of Diplomacy -- 5. The Olympic Facelift -- 6. Catch-22 -- 7. The Slippery Slope of Change.

"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."--BOOK JACKET.