Hong Kong\u27s dual identities and sporting mega-event policy

Since Hong Kong\u27s reversion to China in 1997, the Special Administrative Region\u27s government and its people have grappled with the problem of trying to pursue dual objectives at the same time. Firstly, to adjust to being a \u27new\u27 part of China and what that means in terms of national consciousness and local identities, particularly given the Beijing leaders\u27 expectations that Hongkongers should come to \u27love China\u27. Secondly, drawing at least in part on the past British colonial legacy, to maintain Hong Kong\u27s international role as a cosmopolitan and commercial city as typified through the aspiration to be \u27Asia\u27s world city\u27. This paper explores the ways in which these two competing narratives intersect in the sports policy arena. Sport is frequently seen as a means to express or reflect nationalism or at the very least contribute to the formation of national identity. By using the case studies of Hong Kong\u27s partial involvement in the 2008 Beijing Olympics (hosting the equestrian events), its hosting of the 2009 East Asian Games and the abortive domestic debates over applying to host the Asian Games, it will be shown that the mixed messages coming from these mega-events (or putative mega-events) reflect the ambivalence felt by many Hongkongers themselves about their place in China and the world

Distant neighbours? : Japan-Korea relations revisited

Japan’s relations with the two Koreas have remained complicated and controversial, as recent anti-Japanese protests in South Korea demonstrate. This paper discusses the progress in bringing reconciliation between Japan and South Korea through an examination of four elements in the bilateral relationship: the historical legacies, the economic competition, the security imperatives (including the relationship with North Korea), and the flows of popular culture and people. It argues that the slowly improving bilateral Japan-South Korea relationship, to which growing economic interdependence, heightened interest in popular culture, and shared beliefs in peace and stability in North-east Asia all contribute, is nonetheless still subject to strong emotional surges and responses to perceived slights on both sides. The recent upsurge in tension, primarily over how Japan views its past, suggests that reconciliation will continue to be a slow and even contradictory process

From ASPAC to EAS : South Korea and the Asian Pacific Region

South Korea’s diplomatic and security focus has inevitably been on North-east Asia and its difficult relationship with its northern neighbour, but South Korea also has a role to play in the broader Asian Pacific region. This paper analyses South Korea’s increasing economic, political and cultural links with the region and its role in the development of Asian Pacific regionalism. Utilising the concept of ‘middle power’, it argues that, while clearly South Korea cannot ignore what is happening in its immediate geographical environment, it does have the economic and political resources to enable it to take advantage of the opportunities for greater interactions with other parts of the Asian Pacific region, if the political will exists

Playing games : the two Koreas and the Beijing Olympics

Inter-Korean sporting contacts in and around the Olympics over the past 60 years suggest that there is a close relationship between politics and sports. For divided nations such as the two Koreas, which by their very rationale are involved in a highly-charged competition for legitimacy with their other ‘part-nation’, the Olympics have been a particularly potent arena for political posturing and manoeuvring. This paper examines the troubled history of the two Koreas’ endeavours to enter the Olympic movement and then out-do each other; the fruitless efforts to agree on a joint Olympic team (from early negotiations in Hong Kong in 1963 through to the present day); and the potential Chinese role in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which means so much to China

US-Japan relations : convergence and divergence in the post-September 11th world

Japan-US relations, which had been drifting in the late 1990s, were given a new lease of life by the new administrations of US President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, both of whom argued for strengthening the alliance. This paper argues that, although the new sense of cooperation extended through to beyond the September 11th events, the US designation of an ‘axis of evil’ has paradoxically caused some divergence in the relationship. Japanese policies towards all three constituents countries of the ‘axis of evil’, Iraq, North Korea and Iran, differ in emphasis and nature from those of the Bush administration. Even though Japan has come out in support of the US attacks on Iraq, it has subtly different concerns and interests with Iraq and the other two named states which place the Koizumi administration in a dilemma about how far to follow the US lead