Sport and Nationalism in China

CHINA
Copyright © 2019. Logos Verlag Berlin. All rights reserved.
Media, Sport, Nationalism : East Asia: Soft Power Projection Via the Modern Olympic Games, edited by Tianwei Ren, et al., Logos Verlag Berlin,
2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?docID=5837282.
Created from ed on 2023-08-02 17:36:49.
The Nationalist Construction of Chinese Olympians: Media,
Change, Reform
Richard Xiaoqian Hu and Junjian Liang
The essay investigates the relationship between the Chinese nationalism and
modern sport, which was introduced to China at the end of the 19th century,
through looking at the nationalist accounts in the construction of Chinese ath-
letes in the Olympic Games, particularly after Beijing was awarded its first
Olympic Games in 2001. It examines the two-fold nature of the national-
ist account. It argues that this is related to the political characteristics of the
concept of Chinese nationalism under the communist regime. The essay also
investigates the relationship between elite sport performance, which is highly
emphasised within the Chinese elite sport system, and the portraits of Chinese
Olympians. It concludes by demonstrating the consistency of the nationalist ac-
count and its political significance in discussions concerning Chinese elite ath-
letes, and it contrasts this with the changes in media portraits of sports heroes
after the Beijing Games. The relationship between these changes and the re-
form of the Chinese elite sport system is briefly discussed in the conclusion.
Sport is assigned various roles and functions in modern society, for example as a
‘peacemaker’1 and catalyst at global, local and individual levels2 on the one hand;
but on the other hand, it is also known famously as ‘war minus shooting’.3 It also, on
occasion, may lead to, or provoke, conflict and confrontation between nations and
states.4 This is also true for the Olympics, which encourages universalism, but also
facilitates opportunities to promote nationalism. With the five-ringed flag fly-ing
high above the stadium, spectators demonstrate their national pride through the
waving of national flags or painting their faces in national colours, and countries re-
alise political objectives, such as to establish and to reinforce their national identities
1
Coubertin, Pierre de. ‘Sport Is a Peacemaker’. In Muller, Norbert. (ed.) Olympism, Selected
Writings. (Lausanne, Switzerland: International Olympic Committee, 2000): 240–241.

2
Darnell, Simon C. ‘Power, Politics and “Sport for Development and Peace”: Investigating the Util-
ity of Sport for International Development’. Sociology of Sport Journal, no. 27 (2010): 54–75;
Gratton, Chris and Henry, Ian. Sport in the City: The Role of Sport in Economic and Social Regen-
eration. (London: Routledge, 2001); Wigger, Ulrike. ‘Exercise and Youth: Physical Activity, Sport
Involvement, and Development’. European Journal of Sport Science 1, no. 3 (2001): 1–8.
3
Orwell, George. ‘The Sporting Spirit’. 1945. Available at:
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e spirit. (Accessed 04.05.2018).
4
Lee, Francis L.F. ‘Negotiating Sporting Nationalism: Debating Fan Behaviour in “China vs. Japan”
in the 2004 Asian Cup Final in Hong Kong’. Soccer & Society 10, no. 2 (2009): 192-209; Cha,
Victor D. ‘Winning Is Not Enough: Sport and Politics in East Asia and Beyond’. The International
Journal of the History of Sport 30, no. 11 (2013): 1287–1298.
18 The Nationalist Construction of Chinese Olympians
(or sometimes to show disapproval of others) as is true, of course, of sport generally.5
It is stated by Hoberman that ‘sporting nationalism is not a single generic phe-

nomenon; on the contrary, it is a complicated socio-political response to challenges
and events, both sportive and non-sportive, that must be understood in terms of the
varying national contexts in which it appears’.6 This essay looks at the nationalist
construction of Chinese athletes, particularly those who are identified and portrayed
as national heroes in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The nationalist narrative regarding sport, i.e. sport as a means and an embodiment
of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, has been a vital element of Olympic dis-
course in Chinese society since modern sport was introduced to China in the 19th
century. The PRC, established in 1949, has inherited the nationalist connotation
of elite sport in Chinese society while blending additional features into Chinese
Olympic discourse, particularly those concerning the Olympic performance of Chi-
nese athletes. In line with the traditional accentuation of success in Chinese society
and the emphasis on elite sport performance in the Chinese elite sport system, suc-
cessful Olympic athletes are recognised and portrayed as heroes of both the Chinese
nation and the communist regime. Following China’s unprecedented successes in
2008 and in 2012 in the Olympic Games, the nation has witnessed a dramatic boost
in the number of Chinese Olympic heroes but also subtle changes in the construction
of the Chinese sports heroes.
Chinese Nationalism and Chinese Modern Sport
The Modern Era: Chinese Nationalism
Modern Chinese nationalism is closely associated with the suffering and the survival
of the Chinese nation during its century of humiliation. As chanted in the National
Anthem of the PRC, i.e. the March of the Volunteers, ‘the Chinese nation faces its
greatest peril’7 during those years from the First Opium War in 1840 to the establish-
ment of the communist regime in 1949.
5
Dinnie, Keith. Review of Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities
and Regions, by Simon Anholt. Journal of Brand Management 14, no.6 (2007): 474-475.
6
Hoberman, John. ‘Sport and Ideology in the Post-communist Age’. In Allison, Lincoln. (ed.) The
Changing Politics of Sport. (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993): 15–
36.
7
Translated by authors.
MEDIA, SPORT, NATIONALISM 19
National peril resulted in a great nationalist question confronting Chinese social

elites for more than a century and inherited by the People’s Republic of China (PRC):
‘how to release China from its past suffering and establish a great independent nation
in a Western-dominant international system that centred on the nation-state as the
primary unit of political organisation?’ 8
At this time, the country also faced the challenging objective of national restora-
tion; the identification of a unified Chinese nation was the first task for the PRC.
China, unlike modern nation-states in the West, was, and still is, a diverse and multi-
ethnic society based on general cultural principles. Hence, the construction of a
concept of the Chinese nation, which could not only unite ethnic minorities but also
affiliate the country with the nation-state concept advocated by the West, became the
first step of the PRC’s great mission of national rejuvenation.
Ascribing China’s century-long dark age as a consequence of both the collapse of

the corrupted feudal dynasty and the invasion of the imperialist West, the Chinese
leaders employed the communist ideology, particularly, the concept of ‘revolutionary
classes’ as the main criterion to redefine, or to construct anew, the concept of the Chi-
nese people domestically. In addition, the international political climate during the
Cold War, which overlapped with the early stages of the PRC, and the threatening of
a counter attack from the Nationalist Government in Taiwan considerably enhanced
the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal narrative of the communist regime in theorising
the notion of a Chinese nation, who were, for instance, under the oppression from
‘three mountains’, i.e. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism.9
Besides the political criteria, the concept of the Chinese nation, or Zhonghua
Minzu in Chinese, is also constructed via cultural features, such as a single Chi-
nese civilisation throughout history, the assimilation of various ethnic groups into a
unified Chinese society with a diverse culture, particularly during the great and pow-
erful ancient dynasties, such as the Han Dynasty (BC202-220), the Tang Dynasty
(618-907), the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).10
Moreover, along with the protection of the written and spoken language of ethnic
minority groups in the PRC, the promotion of Mandarin via the education system
throughout the country by both the PRC and the Republic of China (hereafter the
ROC) (the Nationalist Government which fled to Taiwan in 1949) also reinforced the
cultural unification of the Chinese nation.
8
Lewis, Orion and Teets, Jessica. ‘China’. In Herb, Guntram and Kaplan, David. (eds.) Nation and
Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview. (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2008): 1191.
9
Kissinger, Henry. On China. (The Penguin Group, 2012).
10
Lewis and Teets, ‘China’.
In addition, it is worth noting that the Chinese term of nationalism, i.e. Minzu
Zhuyi, is, to a degree, avoided in government and media accounts to protect from its
potentially negative effects on the ethnic minority groups. Instead, patriotism, which
is recognised as a state-centric and state-led concept, is employed as another vital
criterion of the Chinese nation, embracing ‘those who support socialism and who
support the unification of the country’.11 This feature extends the concept of Chinese
nation across the borders of the PRC and reaches Chinese communities throughout
the international society.
In summary, as Lewis and Teets point out, the concept of the Chinese nation in
the PRC suggests a unified nation based on communist ideology, patriotic values
and vague cultural principles, enabling China to claim ‘to be a unified multi-ethnic
country, which helps align the Chinese with the nation-state ideal advocated by the
West’.12
The Introduction of Modern Sport
Similar to the idea of nationalism and the nation-state, modern sport was introduced
to China during its century of humiliation. Throughout its thousands of years of
history, there had been an absence of sport in China until the mid-1880s, or as
Brownell states, ‘China was literally almost completely “without sport history”’.13
Not only sport but physical activities in general had been down played in Chinese
culture, while intellectual superiority has been traditionally emphasised throughout
its history.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Middle Kingdom was overpowered in wars: the
First and Second Opium Wars against Western powers, and subsequently brought to
its knees by its neighbour, Japan, who achieved regional dominance in East Asia after
its victory in the First Sino-Japan War in 1895 and began its occupation of China
later in 1931.14 Meanwhile, western religious groups, such as the YMCA, who came
with soldiers and merchants from Europe and America, started to introduce modern
sport to China; promoting physical activities throughout the church and missionary
11
Dong, Jinxia. ‘Woman, Nationalism and the Beijing Olympics: Preparing for Glory’. The Interna-
tional Journal of the History of Sport 22, no. 4 (2005): 530–544.
12
Lewis and Teets, ‘China’, 1196.
13
Brownell, Susan. Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2008): 21.
14
Paine, Sarah C.M. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. (Cam-
bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
school system they established in the country.15
Furthermore, as a result of the traumatisation of Chinese society by the succession

of unsuccessful conflicts, a great number of Chinese elites adopted the idea of social
Darwinism and urged a reform of the old empire into a nation state for the survival of
the nation. The salvation of China was linked to a transformation of the body culture
of Chinese people, who were previously mocked and labelled as ‘the Sick Man of
East Asia’ (Dongya Bingfu). It is stated by Yan Fu, a Chinese thinker and Darwinist,
that
A nation is similar to a body. It is well known that restful life makes the body
feeble, while exercise makes it strong. However, if he wants instantaneously to
renovate the sick body into a healthy one, a man is bound to overdo it, which
will lead him to his death. Does present China like a sick man?16
Thus, aiming to improve the physical condition of the Chinese people, to reinforce
the moral strength of the nation and to cultivate a war-like spirit, without which ‘a na-
tion cannot stand’,17 Chinese social elites started to promote modern sport (including
Physical Education in schools, Western-style physical exercise, sports competitions
and so forth) as well as military training. Mao Zedong, the founding father of the
PRC, argues in his first published work, A Study of Sport [Tiyu zhi Yanjiu], that
China is weak. The war-like spirit is missing. The physique of Chinese is
fragile. These are worrisome problems in China. It is absolutely right to say
that one must build a strong body if s/he wants to cultivate inner strength....
Physical education or exercise ... should be the number one priority of Chinese
people.18
The Political Task of Chinese (Elite) Sport

In line with the historical background of the introduction of modern sport to China,
modern sport, particularly elite sport, was closely associated with nationalism and
both an important indicator of, and instrument for, the restoration of the nation. For
instance, during the first National Games of China in 1910, the Nationalist Gov-
ernment states that ‘China is living under multiple threats from abroad; it will have
trouble surviving as a nation if most of its citizens have no war-like spirit’.19 Four
15
Xu, Guoqi. Olympic Dreams: China and Sports 1895-2008. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, US:
Havard University Press, 2008).
16
Yan, Fu. ‘The Reason of Being Strong [原强]’. Zhi Bao. 1895.
17
Liang, Qichao. Complete Works of Liang Qichao [梁启超全集]. (1999th ed. Vol. 2.) (Beijing:
Beijing Press, 1936): 709.
18
Mao, Zedong. ‘A Study of Sport [体育之研究]’. New Youth [新青年], 1 April 1917, no. 3.
Available at: http://www.hksports.net/hkpe/pe sports/chairman mao.htm. (Accessed 04.05.2018).
19
Wang, Zhenya. Observation of Sport in Old China [旧中国体育见闻]. (Beijing: People’s Sport
Press, 1987): 20.
years later, it was officially documented that more than 20,000 spectators attended the
second National Games to ‘show their appreciation and admiration for the war-like
spirit [of competitors]’.20
Nationalism has also been an important factor for China’s involvement with the
Olympic movement since its Olympic debut, when China’s sole representative, Liu
Changchun, competed at the 1932 Los Angeles Games. This occurred after his only
teammate was arrested by the Japanese in an attempt to prevent any Chinese athletes
from participating in the Games, ‘the lone representative of four hundred million
people’ went to the United States in order to defeat Japan’s conspiracy to legitimise
its puppet state, Manchukuo, in the northeast China through joining the Olympic
Games.21 Despite being unable to qualify for the finals of all events for which he
registered, Liu’s appearance in the Olympics was recognised throughout China and
portrayed as a victory of the nation; thwarting the Japanese plot to use the Games to
legitimise its puppet state, and a symbol of the beginning of a new era of Chinese
and Olympic history.22
Before the establishment of the PRC in 1949, the Nationalist Government had
sent another two delegations to the Olympic Games in 1936 and 1948 respectively.
Despite its limited achievement in terms of sport, the ROC government successfully
conveyed a message of national renewal and ‘achieved its desire to take their place
on the global stage of modernity’,23 in line with the early Chinese discourse on
sport, which ‘was clearly part of the project to reinsert “China” into an international
narrative of history and progress’.24
Following its proclamation that ‘the Chinese people have stood up’, the PRC main-
tained the nationalist narrative in the local account of sport, which was linked with
the rejuvenation of the nation. Furthermore, it also clothes sport, particularly elite
sport, in the attire of political significance. For instance, the legitimacy of regime
was not the only reason that the PRC government sent its first Olympic delegation to
the 1952 Helsinki Games, in addition PRC was battling against the ROC government
in Taiwan within the international Olympic movement for recognition as the true
20
Wang, Observation of Sport in Old China, 140.
21
Luo, Shiming and Huang, Fuhua. ‘China’s Olympic Dream and the Legacies of the Beijing
Olympics’. The International Journal of the History of Sport 30, no. 4 (2013): 443–452; Jowett,
Phillip. Rays of The Rising Sun, Armed Forces of Japan’s Asian Allies 1931–45, Volume I: China &
Manchuria. (26 Willow Rd., Solihull, West Midlands, England: Helion & Co. Ltd., 2004).
22
Xu, Olympic Dreams; Yuan, Wenxue. Liu Changchun: The First Chinese Athlete in Olympics [中
国奥运第一人刘长春]. (Dalian, Liaoning: Dalian Sci-Tech University Press, 2008).
23
Brownell, Beijing’s Games, 62.
24
Morris, Andrew D. Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culturein Republican
China. (Berkley: University of California Press, 2004): 3.
representative of the Chinese people.25 In addition, the ideological conflict between

the PRC and USSR in 1966 also resulted in a shift in the focus of China’s reports
of USSR sport. The reports previously concentrated on the achievement of USSR
athletes and interaction between the two communist giants, and were now focused on
the USSR’s conspiracy and collusion with capitalist countries in international sport
and the boycott OF the Moscow Olympics.26
More importantly, elite sport was also recognised as a crucial element associated
with the superiority of socialism by the newly-founded Chinese government as the
political function of sport as understood by its allies in the Eastern bloc.27 Out-
standing performances by Chinese athletes at international events is thus not only
portrayed as an embodiment of the restoration of the Chinese nation, but also delib-
erately depicted as evidence of the ideological superiority and as justification of the
communist regime.28
Consequently, ‘winning glory for the country’ is officially identified as the ‘politi-
cal task’ of the Chinese elite sport system, i.e. Zhuanye sport, which is a professional
sport system that is different to those based on private sector as it is financed and
run by the government. Given the majority of Chinese elite athletes are developed
through the Zhuanye system, they are identified as sports civil servants without full
ownership of their own human-capital, and are assigned with the very political task
‘winning glory for the country’.29 This emphasis on the successful performance
of athletes for the political usefulness of elite sport, is also consistent with an old
Chinese common saying that ‘winners are nobles, while losers are rebels’, and is
reflected in the portrayal of Chinese Olympians, particularly those with Olympic
medals, as national heroes.
25
Wu, Shaozu. (ed). The History of Sport in the People’s Republic of China [中国体育史]. (Beijing,
China: China Book Press, 1999).
26
Xue, Wenting, Xu, Ziqi and Cheng, Yali. ‘Characteristics of People’s Daily Reports on Soviet Union
Sports among Different Stages of the Cold War [冷战背景下《人民日报》苏联体育报道的阶段
特征研究]’. Journal of Beijing Sport University [北京体育大学学报] 38, no. 7 (2015): 1.
27
Levermore, Roger and Budd, Adrian. (eds.) Sport and International Relations: An Emerging Rela-
tionship. (London; New York: Routledge, 2004); Riordan, James. Sport, Politics and Communism.
International Studies in the History of Sport. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991).
28
Hu, Xiaoqian. ‘An Analysis of Chinese Olympic and Elite Sport Policy Discourse in the Post-
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Era’. PhD Thesis, Loughborough University, 2015.
29
Fan, Hong. ‘The Olympic Movement in China: Ideals, Realities and Ambitions’. Culture, Sport,
Society 1, no. 1 (1998): 149–168.
The Construction of a National Hero in the pre-2008 Era
It is not easy in China to label individuals, particularly those in the pre-modern era,
as national heroes of the Chinese people. There are 56 officially recognised ethnic
groups in ‘the Chinese national family’, which is, as previously indicated, defined
politically rather than ethnographically. Thanks to the multi-ethnic characteristic of
the Chinese nation, there have been debates among academics and in the society on
whether those involved with ancient wars between different ethnic groups should be
recognised as heroes of the Chinese nation as one entity, or rather a hero of an ethnic
group.30
However, wars and confrontations against foreign countries provide a sound foun-
dation on which a perfectly clear status of a Chinese national hero can be constructed.
For instance, General Qi Jiguang, who led the defence along the coastline of China
against the Wokou pirates comprised by Japanese, Portuguese, and Southeast Asians
in the 16th century, is well recognised as a national hero.31 Due to China’s consecu-
tive defeats in military and diplomatic fields in the latter stages of the 19th century,
there was an increase in the xenophobic and anti-colonial narratives in subsequent
accounts constructing national heroes, for instance the celebration of the fighters
in the Boxer Rebellion, and Huo Yuanjia, a Kungfu master who defeated foreign
fighters and was dubiously poisoned by Japanese agents before his death.32
In accordance with the nationalist agenda in Chinese sport, additional ideological

characteristics are also blended into the construction of elite athletes in the era of the
PRC, which has been significantly influenced by the revolutionary literature. Elite
athletes are framed as those who are inspired and driven by revolutionary spirit,
subsequently defeat their enemy (either opponents on or off the field), and eventually
obtain victory. Their identities are ideologically and narratively idolised, even deified
in some circles, and are subtly portrayed as the metaphor for the collective image and
30
Guan, Yanbo. ‘A Review of the Researches of Relations and Wars between Ethnic Groups and of
Ethnic Heroes in Ancient China [中国古代民族关系、民族战争与民族英雄研究的考察]’. Trends
of Recent Researches on the History of China [中国史研究动态] 2 (2017): 29–35.
31
Wu, Xiaojuan. ‘National Hero General Qi Jiguang’s Patriotic Practices and Fights against Wokou
Pirates [民族英雄戚继光爱国抗倭史迹述略]’. Lantai Shijie [兰台世界] 18 (2013): 15-16.
32
Silby, David. The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China: A History. (Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2012); Wang, Ruhui. ‘An Interpretation of the Slogan of the Boxer Rebellion [义和团 ‘‘扶
清灭洋’’ 口号解读]’. Dongyue Tribune [东岳论丛] 27, no. 1 (2006): 144–149; Li, Junyi. ‘From a
Martial Artist to a National Hero, the Transformation of the Status of Huo Yuanjia at the Begining
of the 20 Century [从武师到民族英雄——霍元甲形象在二十世纪初的演变’. Cultural Heritage
[文化遗产], no. 5 (2015): 134–147.
concerns of the country.33 In their study of the construction of sports figures in China
Sport Daily, an official sports newspaper affiliated to the General Administration of
Sport (GAS), the four typical features associated with the image of Chinese elite
athletes before the Beijing Olympics include: being recalcitrant and striving to outdo
others, positivity and endeavouring to make progress, having a high sense of honour
and duty, vivacity and gregariousness.34 And it could be argued that the first three
features above are related to the nationalist task of Chinese elite sport, and some
slogans, such as working hard and improving oneself relentlessly to revitalise China,
which are accentuated in the dominant accounts of China during its reform era.
The nationalist portrayals of sports heroes in the mass media and the Chinese gov-
ernment documents provide an official (and less radical) account, and closely asso-
ciate elite athletes with national spirit and image. In the speeches of the then-Minister
of Sport, Liu Peng, at the annual conference of all states sport ministers in 2007 and
2008 he indicated that
[Elite athletes, we] must further develop our skills and [must] achieve great
result in the Beijing Games. Elite sport has unique or even irreplaceable effects
in increasing national cohesion and centripetal forces and in inspiring the na-
tional spirit.35
We must understand the goals of staging and participating in the [2008] Games
from the aspect of promoting ... the development of society and the prosperity
of [Chinese] culture. It is incumbent upon us to strive for outstanding results in
the Beijing Games... [because] the performance of Chinese elite athletes will
be a showcase of the national image.36
Peng clearly interprets the significance of Chinese athletes’ ‘outstanding perfor-

mance in the Beijing Games’ from ‘the aspect of Chinese society and culture’. Chi-
nese athletes, who are identified as the embodiment of ‘the national image’, are as-
signed with the ‘incumbent’ duty of ‘achiev[ing] great result[s] in the Beijing Games’
33
Pan, Xiaofei. ‘The Narrative Frame of the Rio 2016 Olympics from the Perspective of Athletes [运
动员视角下里约奥运会报道叙事框架分析]’. Journal News Research [新闻研究导刊] 8, no. 12

(2017): 101.
34
Li, Sha, Lan, Yunxi and She, Hong. ‘The Study of the Typical and Altered Image of Sport Figures:
A Case Study of China Sport Daily [体育人物的刻板印象及变化探析——以《中国体育报》为
例]’. Journal of Tianjing Sport Institute [天津体育学院学报] 26, no. 2 (2011): 149–150.
35
Liu, Peng. ‘The Speech of Sport Minister Peng Liu for 2007 All States Sports Minis-
ter Conference [2007 年全国体育局长会议刘鹏主题报告全文]’. 2007. Available at:
http://sports.sohu.com/20070119/n247705448.shtml. (Accessed 03.05.2018).
36
Liu, Peng. ‘The Speech of Sport Minister Peng Liu for 2008 All States Sports Minister Conference
[国家体育总局局长、党组书记刘鹏在 2008 年全国体育局长会议上做主题报告]’. 2008.
Available at: http://www.sport.gov.cn/n16/n1077/n1392/n31411/n31441/168203.html. (Accessed
03.05.2018).
to realise the ‘irreplaceable effects’ of elite sport in boosting the national spirit with
their performance. In other words, Chinese athletes’ success in the Olympic Games,
which is highly emphasised in the Zhuanye sport system, is subtly constructed as
victory for the Chinese nation, at least in terms of the morale of the nation. This
account is in agreement with the nationalist connotation of elite Chinese sport which
requires a restoration of the nation from its past suffering. Those who bring glory
to the Chinese nation at the international Olympics are thus recognised as national
heroes. Chinese academic journal provides a clear and candid account of Chinese
athletes, particularly the ‘gold medallists’, as national heroes:
The Olympic medal ceremonies are obviously political symbolic, [the symbolic
meaning of] which is expressed through the raising of the national flags and the
playing of the national anthem...when our athletes are standing on the top of
the podium...as long as having the blood of Huaxia in his/her body, he/she will
be excited about, and proud of being the descendants of Yan and Huang. [The
Olympic] Gold medallists are usually regarded as national heroes. This is to
say, one successful Olympic Games per se is a great resource for national iden-
tity education to of [Chinese] nationals, and is [also] a great opportunity for
strengthening national cohesion. From this point, it is argued that the effect of a
successful Olympic Games on the construction of national society is irreplace-
able in this inevitably special period due to reform and opening-up process, in
which there are confusions in social values.37
Above the author explicitly identifies ‘gold medallists’, as ‘national heroes’. The
author associates preeminent modern Chinese athletes with historical moments, such
as ‘Huaxia’ and with ‘the descendants of Yan and Huang’. The first is a historical
term which describes a union of tribes that were the ancestors of the Han Chinese
and then becoming synonymous to China. ‘Yan’ and ‘Huang’ refers to the leaders of
two tribes in ‘Huaxia’. Besides linking the political implication of Olympic medal
ceremonies with ‘the blood of Huaxia’ and portraying gold medallists as ‘national
heroes’, the author subtly extends the nationalist meaning of elite athletes and victo-
ries in the Olympics beyond the geographical/political border of both the PRC and
the ROC, and suggests that these elite athletes are heroes of not only the Chinese
people in mainland China and Taiwan, also the Chinese ‘nation’ around the world.
The article also considers the political usefulness of the Olympic Games in the
construction of national identity, and labels the Olympic Games as ‘a great resource
for national identity education of [Chinese] nationals, and [also] a great opportunity
for strengthening national cohesion’. Even though there is no direct reference to
37
Tang, Yan. ‘A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Chinese Olympic Gold Medal Winning Program [对
我国 ‘‘奥运争光计划’’ 的多维审视]’. Journal of Wuhan Institute of Physical Education [武汉体
育学院院报] 41, no. 2 (2007): 20.
Chinese athletes and elite sport performance, the use of ‘successful Olympic Games’
in the quotation indirectly emphasises excellent performance in the Olympic Games,
because, ‘it is natural that Chinese people, even sports personalities and media...
regard the Olympic [movement] merely as a sport competition, as winning gold
medals’.38
This argument is consistent with the author recognising ‘gold medallists’ as ‘na-
tional heroes’, which reinforces the importance of outstanding performance. It is also
in line with the accentuation of successful elite sport performance on the interna-
tional stage, particularly in the Olympic Games, by not only the Chinese government
but by Chinese society. There is a common Chinese saying ‘winners are kings and
nobles, and losers are rebels’. It could thus be argued that to ‘win glory for the
country’ is one of the most, if not the most, crucial qualities for an elite athlete as
a hero or heroine. Victory over foreign athletes and the athlete would consequently
and naturally be recognised as an embodiment of the symbolic association culturally
and historically embraced within elite sport discourse in China, i.e. ‘the rejuvenation
of the Chinese nation’.39
Emphasising the significance of victories on the international stage also influences

the Chinese elite sport system in strategic terms, for instance, categorising sport
according to their respective potential in winning Olympic medals, and decorating
of buildings as a way honouring the heroes. There is a ‘Glory Board’ installed by
the governing body of the sport in the training hall of the national gymnastic team
which depicting all Chinese world champions and Olympic gold medallists.40 The
purpose is not only to honour those winners but also to encourage their peers in the
national team to win glory for the nation. Unlike the rules of the Hall of Fame of,
for example, the MLB or the NBA, the members of the Glory Board do not have
to be retired gymnasts, but must be a world champion. Thus, in the majority of
cases, it is active members of the national team who are on the Glory Board. Their
teammates watch the inductee’s photo being added to the board under the national
flag with the national anthem playing in the annual ceremony, to which not only
inductees’ parents but also officials from their hometowns are invited. In addition,
an athlete could be inducted twice if they won multiple Olympic or world titles, with
the inductee’s teammates gathered each time to honour the winner. For instance,
38
Xiong, Douyin. ‘The Beijing Olympic Games and the Development of the Sport in China [北京奥
运会与中国体育发展]’. Journal of Sports and Science [体育与科学] 23, no. 6 (2002): 10.
39
Xinhua. ‘Xi Jinping: Upholding the Banner of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics on the Road
toward Victory in Building a Well-off Society and Realizing the Chinese Dream of National Re-
juvenation [习近平：为决胜全面小康社会实现中国梦而奋斗]’. Xinhua News, 27 July 2017.
Available at: http://www.xinhuanet.com/2017-07/27/c 1121391548.htm. (Accessed 21.04.2018).
40
Dong, ‘Woman, Nationalism and the Beijing Olympics’.
Cheng Fei, a Chinese female gymnast and winner of multiple world championships,
was introduced to the board twice, in 2005 and 2006 respectively, for her consecutive
gold medals in the world championships.41
This ritual is duplicated by regional sport administration departments to honour

their heroes who achieve outstanding performance in not only international com-
petitions, but also the Chinese National Games. Gymnasts in the regional training
system, particularly young gymnasts at four or five years of age are gathered for
the ceremony, which, as the head coach of the Chinese national team has said, is
expected ‘to make a deep impression on [these children] and to inspire them to work
harder and eventually be on to the Glory Board’.42
Outstanding performances of Chinese Olympic heroes are recognised as ‘irre-

placeable’ during the era of reform and in its function in clarifying ‘confusions
in social values’. In other words, elite athletes are portrayed as protectors of the
regime’s ideology of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ – the official ideology
of the Communist Party of China and supports in the introduction of the socialist
market economy, the economic reform and opening up of China.43 This connection
between Chinese elite athletes and the communist ideology, as previously stated, has
been a major characteristic in the construction of Chinese athletes as national heroes
in communist China since the early days of the PRC.
Thanks to the political climate and diplomatic circumstances during the early stage
of the PRC, not only socialist narratives but also political discourse in general had
been employed in the ideological construction of sport in the PRC. For instance,
political and ideological education, such as theories of Marxism and Leninism, were
listed as compulsory in sport hens established by the PRC following the model of
the USSR. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China explicitly states
that sport should ‘serve production and national defence’.44
41
Hubei Administration of Sport. ‘Cheng Fei [程菲]’. Hubei Administration of Sport, 2016. Available
at: http://www.hbsport.gov.cn/gjb/38.html. (Accessed 03.05.2018).
42
Chi, Xinxin. ‘Dong Zhen, Chen Yibing and Teammates Are Introduced to the Glory Board [董震
陈一冰等八人登天津体操荣誉榜]’. Originally published by Jin Wan Bao, 14 December 2011.
Available at: http://roll.sohu.com/20111214/n329025322.shtml. (Accessed 21.04.2018).
43
Vogel, Ezra Feivel. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. (Harvard University Press,
2013).
44
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. ‘The Circular of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China for Approving and Transmitting the10-Year
Plan of the State Physical Culture and Sport Commission (SPCSC) [中共中央批转国家
体委党组《关于体育运动十年规划的报告》]’. 19 September 1958. Available at:
http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64184/64186/66665/4493225.html. (Accessed 04.05.2018).
During China’s 20-year (1959-1979) absence from the Olympic Games, elite sport
had been given less emphasis than mass sport, for it was seen as exclusive for the
minority of elite athletes and thus a symbol of ‘capitalist champion-ism’.45 Thus po-
litical components of Chinese elite sport had become increasingly stressed. Athletes
and coaches were required not only to study the works of Chairman Mao, but also
to undertake annual manual labour in farms, factories and military camps under the
supervision of designated personnel.46
Socialist ideological trappings are thus a crucial element on accounts of Chinese

athletes, who are expected to be ‘able to prioritise national and collective value,
to make individual values subordinate to collective values, to make partial values
subordinate to the unified values, and to ignore their own individual interest’.47 This
political consciousness of communist ideology has been a consistent theme in con-
siderations of the Chinese elite athlete, who, is expected to be ‘red and professional
(both socialist-minded and professionally competent)’. 48
Two of the most typically socialist characteristics in Chinese discourse concerning

elite athletes are the state’s ownership over the human capital of elite athletes and the
promotion of collective interests over individual interest. These are the consequences
of the nature of the Zhuanye system, i.e. based on planned economy; financed and
governed by the government. Policy concerning the development of elite athletes’
commercial value, officially records that
[The Chinese athletes] are ... the precious treasure of Chinese sport, are the
intangible resource of Chinese [elite] sport. The business activities of elite ath-
letes who are in active service, [which are] based on their popularity and [even
if] in the names of themselves, are the significant form of developing this in-
tangible asset to repay [their] motherland and to make further contribution to
[Chinese] sport.49
By portraying elite athletes as ‘intangible resource’ and contributors who ‘repay

their mother land’, the intangible asset of elite athletes is identified as the possession
45
Wu, The History of Sport in the People’s Republic of China, 13
46
Cui, Lequan, Yang, Xiangdong and Luo, Shiming. History of Chinese Sport Ideologies [中国体育
思想史]. (Beijing: Capital Normal University Press, 2008).
47
Wu, The History of Sport in the People’s Republic of China, 152, 153.
48
State Physical Culture and Sport Commission (SPCSC). (ed.) ‘Summary of the National Sport
Working Conference in 1978’. (Beijing, 1978): 126.
49
General Administration of Sport. ‘Notification of the Attemptation of Manag-
ing the Contract for the Commercial Activities of Athletes in National Teams [关
于对国家队运动员商业活动试行合同管理的通知]’. 2006. Available at:
http://www.sport.gov.cn/n16/n33193/n33208/n33463/n33898/149784.html. (Accessed
03.05.2018).
of the state, which would ultimately benefit by the development of this intangible
asset. This is consistent with the prioritisation of collective interests, which is in
line with the socialist ideology of the country. The relationship between the state
and elite athletes is defined and legitimised by the elite athletes’ dependence on the
public resource throughout the training network of the Zhuanye sport system, offi-
cially recognised as ‘an embodiment of the superiority of socialism’ in a number of
speeches by the top leaders of the PRC and official documents.50 In other words, the
governments’ control over, or ownership of, the human capital and financial benefits
of elite athletes is thus normalised as a characteristic of the socialist society.
Speeches by Liu Peng provide a vivid illustration of this, when the then-Minister
of Sport he stated that:
It is pointed out by comrades in the leading core [of the Communist Part of
China] that, the story and glamorous style of [how] the Chinese female volley-
ball team and Chinese table tennis team worked tenaciously to win glory for
the country ... such a spiritual character is the foundation of the [member of
Chinese] elite sport to prepare for the battle of the 2008 Games ... the victory
of the Long March51 was achieved by the Red Army due to their recalcitrant
spirit under the tough condition; preparing the battle of Olympic Games also
needs the same recalcitrant spirit.
The further reinforcement and improvement of the ideological and political

work of national teams is an urgent requirement of battle-preparation for the
2008 Games... Winning glory for the country is the eternal topic of the ideo-
logical and political work of elite sport teams.52
50
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. ‘The Central Committee of the CPC and
the State Council’s Guidelines for Further Strengthening and Improving Sporting Affairs in the New
Era [中共中央国务院关于进一步加强和改进新时期体育工作的意见]’. 22 July 2002. Available
at: http://www.sport.gov.cn/n16/n1092/n16849/127397.html. (Accessed 04.05.2018); Hu, Jintao.
‘Hu Jintao’s Speech at the Awards Ceremony for the 2008 Olympics and the Paralympics [胡锦涛在
北京奥运会残奥会总结表彰大会上的讲话]’. 2008. Origianlly published in Xinhua Net. Avail-
able at: http://www.gov.cn/ldhd/2008-09/29/content 1109754.htm. (Accessed 03.05.2018); Qian,
Tong and Chen, Zhi. ‘Xi Jinping Visits the Chinese Delegation for the Sochi Winter Games [习
近平亲切看望索契冬奥会中国体育代表团]’. Xinhua News, 7 February 2014. Available at:

http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/0207/c1024-24293876.html. (Accessed 04.05.2018); Wang,
Jianing. ‘Postitive Responds to Xi Jinping’s Speech in His Meeting with Olympic Athletes [习
近平看望中国奥运健儿时的重要讲话在国内体育界引起强烈反响]’. Originally published
on Xinhua News, 8 February 2014. Available at: http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/0208/c1024-
24302452.html. (Accessed 04.05.2018).
51
The Long March (October 1933-October 1935) was a military retreat of 9,000 km by the Red Amy,
the Communist Party of China (CPC) military force which was being chased by the KMT army.
It has been constantly used as a theme of propaganda, delineating the fighting spirit and spirit of
stubborn determination under tough conditions of the Chinese people, a spirit accredited to the
leadership of the CPC.
52
Liu, ‘The Speech of Sport Minister Peng Liu for 2007 All States Sports Minister Conference’.
The Long March, the Red Army and its revolutionary and its recalcitrant spirit
under tough conditions are employed in the quotation to accentuate the urgency and
toughness of the ‘battle-preparation of the 2008 Games’. Comparison between elite
athletes and military forces, which is commonly witnessed in Chinese elite sport,
clothes the competitiveness in elite sport with a proud nationalism and stressed the
‘war-like’ nature of international sport. It is also employed to emphasise the respon-
sibility and non-negotiability of the duty of elite athletes, because ‘“winning glory
for the country” is the duty of those who work in sport, like [the duty of] ... soldiers
[to] protect the country..., which is [a] non-negotiable [task]’.53
It is also worth noting that the Sport Minister also mentions Chinese elite sport
teams and personnel, such as the Chinese table tennis team and Chinese female vol-
leyball team, who have been regarded and portrayed as metaphors for the superiority
of the socialism, and embodiment of persistence, self-motivation and collectivism.
Chinese table tennis, as the national sport, has been associated with strong political
significance for not only its role in the famous Ping-Pong diplomacy between China
and the United States, but also the victorious record that Chinese players have en-
joyed on the international stage since Rong Guotuan won the first gold medal for
China in the 1959 World Championship. While the Chinese table tennis team pro-
vided Chinese people with a platform to compete with the outside world during the
pre-reform era, the Chinese female volleyball team boosted the morale of Chinese
society during the early stages of ‘the reform and opening-up era’ of China with its
five consecutive world champions, including the World Cup, World Championship
and the Olympic Games, from 1981 to 1986.54
The excellent performance of each team has been recognised as an outcome of

the superiority of the socialist system of China. For instance, soon after the Chinese
women’s victory in the volleyball competition at the Los Angeles Olympics, it was
stated in a report of
emphChina Sport Daily that not only officials and soldiers but also ordinary citizens
were thrilled by the girls. A farmer was quoted saying that ‘we farmers are proud of
the great achievements of our Chinese women’s volleyball team. We are assured that
the whole nation under the leadership of the party will win even more gold medals in
the drive of socialist construction’.55 Professor John Mo, a professor of sport science
53
Duan, Shijie. ‘The Conclusion Speech of Deputy Sport Minister Duan Shijie for 2007 All States
Sports Minister Conference [国家体育总局副局长段世杰作大会总结]’. 2007. Available at:
http://www.sport.gov.cn/n16/n1077/n1392/n31291/n31351/153893.html. (Accessed 03.05.2018).
54
Xiong, Xiaozheng, Xia, Siyong and Tang, Yan. Studies on the Developing Model of Elite Sport of
Our Nation (1st ed). [我国竞技体育发展模式的研究（第一版）]. (Beijing: People’s Sport Press,
2008).
55
Yan, S.X. ‘Volleyball Girls, Chinese People Thank You’. China Sports Daily. 1984.
of Tsinghua University, claims that there is a transfer value of sport. The qualities
people learn from participating in sport and competitions can be transferred to their
daily life and make them more complete. A political transfer from the victories of a
group of heroic women to the legitimacy of the heroic Chinese regime is the clearest
evidence of the soundness of communism and of the leadership of the party over
China.56
In a nutshell, Chinese elite athletes have been assigned a glorious mission with the
strongest nationalist purpose – the rejuvenation of the nation. They are the same as
national heroes, who defend the country in war and are thus worshiped by the people,
Chinese athletes are expected to performance excellently on the international stage
and those on the podium with a national flag on their chests are consequently given
heroic status by the media, and more importantly by academics and the Chinese
government.
Furthermore, elite athletes’ overly displayed ideological qualities particularly

those consistent with China’s mainstream ideology, such as socialist values and col-
lective interest, have been required since the establishment of the PRC. After ‘the
opening-up’ of China at the end of 1970s, emphasis has been increasingly placed
on ideological comment, due to the fact that ‘some athletes...have even behaved in
libertarian and hedonistic ways exhibiting extreme individualism and materialism
[money-worship] ... [because] they have abundant opportunities for competing over-
seas, they are susceptible to Western ideology’.57 With the result that Yao Ming, an
NBA star and the centre of Houston Rocket and China’s male basketball team con-
tributed half of his salary to the Chinese sport government. In addition, he took his
countrymen to the quarter finals of the Beijing Games and was regarded as one of the
best basketball players in the world by the Chinese people. In contrast, Tian Liang,
an Olympic and world champion diver, refused to share his commercial income with
the national governing body of aqua sport, and was ejected from the national squad
before 2008.58
56
Ma, Yuehan. ‘Sport’s Migration Value [体育的迁移价值]’. In Tsinghua University’s Editorial
Group of the Festschrift of Ma Yuehan. (ed.) Festschrift of Ma Yuehan. (Beijing: Chinese Cultural
and Historical Press, 1926): 44–95.
57
General Administration of Sport. ‘Opinions on Further Strengthen and Improve the Ideological
Education of National Teams [关于进一步加强和改善国家队思想政治工作的意见]’. 2006.
58
Gao, Luna. ‘After Expelled from National Team, Nothing Left in Tian Liang but Surplus Value [被
国家队除名田亮只剩剩余价值, 尚有四种出路选择]’. People.cn, 27 January 2005. Available at:
http://sports.people.com.cn/GB/31928/32032/43835/43836/3149511.html. (Accessed 03.05.2018).
Consistency and Changes in the Construction of Chinese Sport Heroes

in the Post-2008 Era
Since China’s ‘opening-up and reform’, entertainment increasingly features in the

Chinese media.59 Thanks to the rapid development of online media, state-owned
media are also influenced and willing to shift the focus of their coverage of Chinese
elite athletes.60 For instance, there were a considerable number of reports concerning
Guo Jingjing, a Chinese diver and multiple-Olympic champion, that focused on her
relationship with the son of Timothy Tsun-Ting Fok, a business tycoon and the only
current IOC member from Hong Kong, rather than her outstanding performance
at the Beijing Games, where she won another two Olympic gold medals; the final
Olympic appearance for the then-27-year-old.61 Wei Miao’s study, scrutinised re-
ports of table tennis, badminton and tennis from one of the biggest online media in
China and revealed that they focused more on female athletes’ appearances, clothes,
hobbies, personal life and so forth, than their sports performance. There is also less
coverage of female athletes’ professional careers, skills and career statistics than
those of male athletes.62
Some now argue that the political significance associated with elite sport has grad-
ually faded away.63 However, the investigation of the construction of Chinese elite
athletes in the post -2008 era suggests that the account of the entertainment-driven
and economic-interest-oriented media, and the nationalistic discourse concerning the
political function of elite sport are not in a zero-sum relationship.
Two cases are selected as the principal data for the analysis of the construction of
Chinese heroes in the post-2008 era. The first example is Liu Xiang, the Chinese
hurdler who won a gold medal in the Athens Olympic Games but failed to repeat
the successful performance in 2008 and 2012 in part due to injury. The Chinese
women’s volleyball team, which has long been associated with nationalist and polit-
ical significance in Chinese elite sport discourse, provides the second example. They
59
Huang, Hanshuang. ‘On the Comparison of Sports Reporting of China and USA Newspaper [中美
报刊体育新闻报道比较]’. Press Circles [新闻界] 2 (2008): 49–51
60
Wu, Yandong and Wei, Qian. ‘Character Images and Discourse Changement in Sports Reports
Since the Founding of the PRC [建国以来我国体育报道中的人物形象及话语变迁]’. Journal of
Shenyang Sport University [沈阳体育学院学报] 36, no. 2 (2017): 62–66.
61
Miao, Wei. ‘The Review of the Online Media Reports on the Image of Female Athletes [网络媒体
报道对女性运动员形象塑造的思考]’. China Publishing Journal [中国出版], no. 5 (2015): 32–
35.
62
Ibid.
63
Ma, Tingkui. ‘From Generalization of Political to Popular Carnival: The Transition of Chinese
Sports News [从政治泛化到大众狂欢——我国体育报道的流变及转向]’. Journalism Bimonthly
[新闻大学] 4 (2006): 103–106.
were the most remarkable Chinese sports figures throughout the period immediately
preceding and following the Beijing Games, and have attracted great public attention
for more than two Olympiads, during time they have attracted much coverage from
the Chinese media.
Liu Xiang: an Individual Tragic Hero
Liu Xiang’s career, which continued through to the London Olympics, reached its
Olympic summit at the Athens 2004 Summer Games. On 28 August 2004, he won
his first and only Olympic gold medal with a new Olympic record tying the world
record at 12.91s in the men’s 110m hurdles final. Liu Xiang subsequently broke the
world record in the 2006 IAAF Super Grand Prix Lausanne and became the Grand
Slam winner with his 110m hurdles gold in the 2007 IAAF World Championships.
Liu Xiang’s excellent performance and status as the only Asian Olympic champion
in short sprints provided an excellent material for media coverage, which covered
him in the pre-2008 era. On the one hand, the photos that captured the moment of
Liu wearing the national flag of the PRC on the Olympic podium and his statement
that ‘China has me, Asia has me’ provide one of the most powerful, if not the most
powerful, statements embracing nationalist significance unambiguously. The repet-
itive media presentation had constructed Liu Xiang, and reinforced his status as a
national hero of the Chinese, and even of the Asian, peoples. On the other hand,
the pre-2008 image of Liu Xiang also highlighted his personality and individuality,
which added a human touch to the discussion of Chinese elite athletes. As an ener-
getic and easy-going young man from Shanghai, one of the most developed cities in
China, Liu Xiang was portrayed as a handsome, cheerful and vigorous sports star by
the Chinese media, with elements of ‘the boy next door’.64
Unfortunately, his career was subsequently ruined by injury and his portrayal
within the Chinese Media following his withdrawals from the 2008 and 2012
Olympic Games characterised the way in which his heroic image shall be con-
tinuously remembered.
Despite his Olympic withdrawals, Liu Xiang’s status as a national hero was main-
tained in the Chinese media. Xinhua News Agency published a feature, ‘Liu Xiang,
64
He, Bin. ‘A Deep Sigh in Niao-Chao, the Media Need Introspection–a Case Study of the Profes-
sionalization and Propaganda of Sports Reports on Liu Xiang’s Withdrawal [鸟巢一长叹传媒当深
思——从刘翔伤退看体育报道的专业性与宣传性]’. Journalism Review [新闻记者] 9 (2008):
9–13.
Tragic but Gallant’,65 soon after his withdrawal from the 2008 Olympic Games. The
authors drew a series of scenarios in which Liu Xiang enhanced national pride in
2004, and drew attention to one of Liu’s famous remarks:
[A]s soon as I looked at the national flag rising slowly, I was deeply moved. I
don’t know why [I am like that] every time I see the national flag [rising] and
hear our national anthem [sung], I would become extraordinarily emotional!66
In this statement Liu describes watching the national flag of the PRC enter the
Bird’s Nest during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Subsequently, the
national flag had become an important symbol constantly employed in media cover-
age of him. Four years later, positive comments from the foreign media and foreign
athletes about Liu Xiang were continuously mentioned in Chinese media, which
stressed that Liu Xiang as ‘our’ representative was highly respected by ‘others’.
Additionally to the other characteristic of the media image of Liu Xiang, i.e. the
human image pre-2008, the media coverage of Liu Xiang’s back-to-back Olympic
withdrawals paid great attention to individual feelings, which was associated with a
variety of rhetorical styles. For instance, second person perspective was commonly
used in the coverage and features of Liu Xiang. Examples include ‘Liu Xiang, Never
Mind’, the commentary of Guangming Daily, an official organ of the Communist
Part of China (CPC); ‘Feeling sorry for your withdrawal this time, wish you could
fly high next time’, the front-page headline of the Oriental Sports Daily, which set
the main tone of its eight-page special issue as ‘moving the readers’ and called its
commentary ‘Sitting sorrowfully by your side’.67 This rhetoric constructs Liu Xiang
as a member of the audience rather than the subject of the coverage, and enhances the
audience’s empathy with the injured hurdler, who used to be recognised as ‘the boy
next door’. In addition, emotions and feelings of those close to Liu were extensively
noted in the coverage in a clear attempt to evoke sympathy from the readers and
viewers. For instance, Liu’s parents were interviewed for a Chinese TV programme
after Liu’s withdrawal from the 2012 Olympic Games. They were shown bursting
into tears whilst watching video footage of Liu’s final performance. They recollected
that an hour and a half after Liu Xiang’s final appearance in the Olympics, their son
contacted them in tears. The anchor concluded the interview commenting that ‘the
son’s foot is in pain. The parents’ hearts are in pain. Please understand and tolerate
them more’.
65
Xiao, Chunfei, Yang, Ming and Liu, Dan. ‘Liu Xiang, Tragic but Gallant [通讯：悲
壮刘翔]’. Originally published by Xinhua News, 18 August 2008. Available at:
http://www.360doc.com/content/12/0809/10/5719126 229170229.shtml. (Accessed 21.04.2018).
66
Ibid.
67
He, ‘A Deep Sigh in Niao-Chao’.
Liu Xiang has been presented as a tragic hero of the Chinese nation. The article
in Xinhua News Agency, ‘Liu Xiang, Tragic but Gallant’, provides an outstanding
example. It starts with a full paragraph recording the fainting of, not Liu Xiang, but
that of that the Greek hero Achilles, who was invulnerable in all of his body except for
his heel. After reminding readers that it was in Greece that both the ancient Olympic
Games and the Trojan War (in which Achilles was killed) took place, the author states
that:
August 18, a sunny day. Liu Xiang took a bus from the Olympic village and his
right foot was aching slightly.
The 25-year-old could not foresee that he will be hit by ‘Achilles heel’ in his
dreamland.
He walked towards his tragedy with head held high.68
In a TV programme broadcast on the day of Liu Xiang’s withdrawal from the

2012 Olympics, the host stated at the opening and the ending of the programme
respectively that ‘the finishing line is not your destination, [your] start symbolises
transcendence’. The primary focus of the programme documented the process of
Liu’s withdrawal and presented it chronologically with an emphasis on the nation’s
expectation on him and the injury he was dealing with. The positive comments of
British athletes and the foreign media on Liu Xiang was also included in the pro-
gramme.
One day after interviewing Liu’s parents, Bai Yan-song, one of the two hosts,
stated publicly that ‘In fact, my deepest impression is that, before Liu Xiang became
the world champion, he was a son with freedom in a very simple family full of expec-
tations and dreams, but after that, his family doesn’t own the boy anymore, but has to
carry more [burden]’. By making a comparison of the situation that confronted the
family before and after Xiang became the Olympic champion, the anchor place em-
phasis on Liu Xiang’s personal life rather than the nationalist task that was assigned
to Chinese elite athletes. It could be argued that such comparison and the line that
‘the finishing line is not your destination, [your] start symbolises a transcendence’
redefines Chinese sport heroes beyond successes and failures, as immortal.
The Chinese Women’s Volleyball Team: Heroes with a Modern Spirit

After winning the gold medal at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, the Chinese
women’s volleyball team collectively became a media darling in China once again
after rising to prominence with five consecutive world championship titles in the
68
Xiao et al. ‘Liu Xiang, Tragic but Gallant’.
1980s. The team won a bronze medal in the Beijing Olympics and finished in fifth
place in the London Games. In 2016, the Chinese women’s volleyball team, led
by Lang Ping, a legendary Chinese female volleyball player and coach, again won
Olympic gold in Brazil.
As previously stated, the portrayal of the Chinese women’s volleyball team has
taken on much political significance. Their success in the 1980s provided China,
which initiated its economic reform and opening-up at the end of 1970s, with an
opportunity to interact with the international community and, more importantly, con-
fidence for their initial steps into the globalisation era.69
It is also worth noting the presentation of female athletes in Chinese media.

Meng and Zhang indicate that the body of female athletes has been ‘functionalised’,
‘symbolised’ and ‘distorted’, which has resulted in social power and national inter-
est, though they are expected, from a feminist perspective, to effectively alter the
stereotype image of the physically disadvantaged female, ‘weak body’ of body and
inferior.70 In his comparative study of the media in China and the United States,
Wu Yuemin argues in coverage of the female athletes the Chinese media tends to
emphasise the relationship between the state and athletes, and to stress their sense
of mission and honour, but not individual struggle and individual value, which are
emphasised in reports in the New York Times.71 And Wu ascribes this Chinese Per-
spective as a consequence of the limited development of a feminist culture in Chinese
sport and the nationalist significance stressed in Chinese elite sport discourse.72
Just one day after their significant victory in the 2016 Olympic Games, the Chinese
women were presented on the first page of People’s Daily, an official mouthpiece
of the CPC. Lang Ping, who has been portrayed as a national hero since the days
when she was a prominent player for the Chinese women’s volleyball team in their
successful period of the 1980s, and Zhu Ting, the leader of the 2016 team, soon
became the favourites of the Chinese media, and subsequently adored by the Chinese
population.
69
Ma, ‘From Generalization of Political to Popular Carnival’.
70
Meng, Xiangwu and Zhang, Yonglong. ‘The Construction of Female Athletes’ Gender Roles and
Body Images in Modern Media [现代传媒对女性运动员性别角色与身体形象的构建]’. Journal
of Sports and Science [体育与科学], no. 2 (2014): 88–91.
71
Wu, Yuemin. ‘Female Images in Sports News Cross-Cultural Decoding Based on Some Mainstream
Chinese and American Newspapers [体育新闻中的女性形象——基于中美部分主流报纸的跨
文化解读]’. Journal of South China Normal University (Social Science Edition) [华南师范大学学
报 (社会科学版)], no. 3 (2012): 19–25.
72
Ibid.
The ideological feature of the Chinese women’s volleyball team is also high-
lighted by the Chinese media, their spirit is portrayed as a powerful stimulus for the
economic and cultural development of China. This is consistent with the political
significance suggested in portrayals of the Chinese women’s volleyball team in the
1980s. However, in contrast to the typical Chinese elite sport reports when Lang
Ping was still a player, which accentuated collective effort and interest and even
eliminated the contribution of individual player, the stories of Zhu Ting and her
teammates highlighted the personality of players and coach.
Lang Ping is commonly depicted as a bridge linking the new and old generation
of the women’s volleyball team as well as being a representative of the spirit of the
1980’s teams. One anecdote that has been frequently repeated is that after Lang
Ping was invited to coach the Chinese women’s volleyball team, she called on Chen
Zhaodi, who was her teammate and another iconic player in the 1980’s team but who
passed away shortly after Lang’s visit. Lang has been quoted as follows:
I am very much moved by the social reaction to Zhaodi’s death, [and understand
that] the women’s volleyball spirit is still motivating [the society]. Why can’t I
make some sacrifices when the team needs me most? In such situation, [I would
like] ... to become a stepping-stone.73
This statement is often used to explain her decision to accept the role of the head
coach of the team rather than to retire. It could be argued that these details greatly
enhance the power of the reports of the Chinese women’s volleyball team which
present an ideological icon - Lang Ping –deciding to ‘make sacrifices’: thus rein-
forced the hero-like status and spiritual nature of Lang and her players.
Besides an admiration of the qualities of the Chinese female volleyball teams, such
as working tenaciously and persistently in tough situations, Lang Ping’s individual
volleyball concepts and tactics, including ‘happy volleyball’, ‘trusting young ath-
letes’ and her ‘miraculous substitution’ in the Olympic final against Serbia, are also
highly praised in the media. Witness the People’s Daily: ‘Great! The Spirit of Chi-
nese Women’s volleyball Team’, which highlights not only a ‘hard-working’ spirit
but also the capability of ‘smart-working’ based on training methods in science and
the collective intelligence of the team, grounded in advanced concepts and theories
of elite sport.74
73
Wang, Jingyu and Xu, Zheng. ‘Five-Star Flag, I Fight for You [五星红旗，我为你拼搏]’. Xinhua
Daily Telegraph, 22 August 2016.
74
Shao, Jinmei. ‘The Case Study of the Report “dream of Women’s Volleyball” on the Front Page of
People’s Daily [《人民日报》头版 ‘‘女排梦’’ 报道研究]’. Youth Journalist [青年记者] 20 (2017):
46–47.
The capacity to simultaneously maintain the original ideological emphasis while

innovatively tackling modern dilemmas used by the Chinese media, particularly those
parts under state-control to encourage China to deepen and regenerate its reform in
a new era considerably different to the China of the 1980s. For instance, it was
commented by People’s Daily that,
‘Never give up in adversity’, ‘one could be destroyed but never defeated’,

‘winning comes from no mysterious energy but recalcitrant spirit’. The Chi-
nese women’s volleyball team fight with such determination and perseverance.
Nowadays, we need to promote the spirit of Chinese women’s volleyball team
in order to solve the dilemma of deepening reform as well as economic trans-
formation and upgrade.75
Xinhua News Agency called for the country to learn from the spiritual character-
istics of the Chinese women’s volleyball team in the first year of the ‘13th Five-Year
Plan’, i.e. 2016 with China facing unfavourable economic trends. In a piece enti-
tled ‘Chinese women’s volleyball team attracting all to their TV, become the spiritual
foundation of the Chinese’, it declared
In the great historical process of comprehensively deepening reform, we should

confidently carry on with our own way and build a solid foundation for long-
term development.76
Through associating such difficulties confronted by the country with those strug-
gles experienced by the Chinese female volleyball team, the authors used the eventual
victory of the women in Rio de Janiero after their less successful experiences in Bei-
jing and London as a political and social metaphor to reinforce the confidence of the
Chinese society in the reform of China.
In the case of the women’s volleyball team nationalist and political messages have
been maintained in the media after the Beijing Games. This consistency in the Chi-
nese media is in line with the continuous emphasis on the political function of sport
in communist China.
It was advocated recently by the then-President of China, Hu Jintao, at the Awards

Ceremony for the 2008 Olympics and the Paralympics, that China shall transform
75
Commentator of People’s Daily. ‘Great! The Sprit of Chinese Women’s Volley-
ball Team [壮哉，女排精神！]’. People’s Daily, 22 August 2016. Available at:
http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0822/c1003-28653220.html. (Accessed 21.04.2018).
76
Yao, Youming and Xu, Zheng. ‘Chinese Women’s Volleyball Team Attracting All
the Their TV, Become the Spiritual Foundation of the Chinese [女排再造万人空
巷成中国人的精神支柱]’. Xinhua News, 12 December 2016. Available at:
http://sports.163.com/16/1212/20/C844KSAO00058782.html. (Accessed 21.04.2018).
itself from a ‘Sporting Giant’ to a ‘Sporting Power’.77 Even though Hu did not define
his concept of a ‘Sporting Power’, a group of scholars were gathered by the GAS
to interpret this ‘new outline and objective for the future development of Chinese
sport’.78 Its definition,
A country is a Sports Power as long as its sport development can integrate into,
and fully promote, the development of its politics, economy, society, culture
and its people; in other words, as long as the positive externality of the sport in
that country is huge and powerful.79
Constructing a Sporting Power... is the strategic deployment made by ... the
Secretary General... at the height of realising the great rejuvenation of the Chi-
nese nation... the competition among powerful countries in their comprehensive
national power has become more and more fierce... In modern society, sport has
become an important symbol of the development and the civilisation of... a so-
ciety, [sport] has been a crucial manifestation of the comprehensive national
power and competitive power of a country, and has been an indispensable vital
driving force for building the socialist modernised powerful country.80
In other words, sport is to be associated with the development of a country, more

precisely, to be identified as both a driving force and the symbol of its development.
The Sport Minister not only explicitly identified sport as ‘an indispensable vital driv-
ing force for building the socialist modernised powerful country’, but also overtly
pointed out the competitive nature of China’s interaction with the international com-
munity, and the symbolic meaning of sport in this interaction. In the part of his
speech, which included the second quotation Liu Peng also stated that ‘elite sport
represented by the Olympics has strong international comparability, and is hence the
distinctive indicator and representation of a Sporting Power’. Clearly the nationalist
and political connotation of elite sport as a political metaphor, as a means of national
restoration and the socialist path of the country has been maintained in Chinese elite
sport discourse.
77
Hu, ‘Hu Jintao’s Speech at the Awards Ceremony for the 2008 Olympics and the Paralympics’.
78
Research Group of the Studies on Theory and Practice of Stepping from a Major Sports Nation to
a Strong Sporting Nation. (ed.) Strategic Research on Strong Sporting Nation. (1st ed.) [体育强国
战略研究（第一版）]. (Beijing, PRC: People’s Sport Press, 2010).
79
Bao, Mingxiao. ‘The Strategic Research on Major Sporting Nation to Strong Sporting Nation [体
育大国向体育强国迈进的战略研究]’. In Research Group of the Studies on Theory and Practice
of Stepping from a Major Sports Nation to a Strong Sporting Nation. (ed.) Strategic Research on
Strong Sporting Nation (First Edition) [体育强国战略研究（第一版）]. (Beijing: People’s Sport
Press, 2010): 6.
80
Liu, Peng. ‘The Speech of Sport Minister Peng Liu for the 2010 All States Sports Minister
Conference [国家体育总局局长刘鹏在全国体育局长会议上的讲话]’. 2010. Available at:
http://www.jzsports.gov.cn/index.php/tycy/48.html. (Accessed 04.05.2018).
In summary, the nationalist and political emphasis in Chinese elite sport discourse,
particularly as related to elite sport athlete, has been maintained in the post-2008
era. However, there are also changes at a rhetorical level, at least in the media
coverage of elite athletes, including the increased usage of personalised stories and
entertainment-oriented approaches, which perhaps could be argued to be conse-
quences of the opening-up and reform of the recent communist regime.
Discussion
In summary, two themes investigation of the images of Chinese elite athletes con-
structed in the Chinese media and government reveals two themes. On the one
hand, nationalist messages are frequently employed in the portrayal of Chinese elite
athletes, particularly of those who enjoy success at international level. This is in
line with the nationalist political objectives associated with Chinese elite sport since
its introduction to the country at the end of the 19th century. On the other hand, a
harmony between athletes’ ideological characteristics and the political emphasis of
the communist regime is also subtly, sometimes directly, suggested in Chinese elite
sport discourse. In other words, the images of elite athletes are politically exploited
and functionalised as an endorsement the correctness of the socialist nature of the
country and as an element in the political education of the population. In short, the
dual nature of the portrayal of Chinese elite athletes is in accordance with the nature
of the definition of the Chinese nation, which is based not only on cultural but also
political criteria that is consistent with PRC’s communist ideology.
Despite the longevity of these two themes, differences in the discursive construc-
tion of Chinese elite athletes throughout the period, and IN the case studies, are
investigated in this essay.
Firstly, the cases of Liu Xiang and the Chinese women’s volleyball team reveal
a loosening association in the media between the successful performance of elite
athletes and their identity as political heroes. The public response to Liu Xiang fol-
lowing his continued disappointments are clearly inconsistent with the overwhelming
criticism confronted by Li Ning, when the 11-times world champion and three-time
Olympic gold medallist returned from the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games with no
medals.81 Successful athletes regarded as ‘aristocracy’ with human characteristics
particularly in the mass media, reflects a change in the social attitude towards elite
sport performance, which was formerly recognised as a pivotal showcase of the
81
Yu, Liqi. Li Ning: A Champion’s Heart [李宁：冠军的心]. (Beijing, China: Citic Press Group,
2008).
power of the nation. This is nowhere better illustrated than by the nomination and
the eventual selection of Li Ning as the final torch bearer responsible for lighting the
Cauldron at the Bird’s Nest to open the 2008 Olympic Games. It not only provided
a highlight to his sporting career, which ended not unhappily in 1988, but also eased
the burden on him since he ended his career by kissing the pommel horse goodbye
at the Seoul Olympics. Such a change could be regarded as a consequence of the
increase in the confidence and power of China after the its market-oriented reform
and in the number of mediums with which the realisation of national rejuvenation
could be associated.82
Nonetheless, outstanding performances of Chinese athletes are continuously

stressed in elite sport discourse as the political and ideological function of elite
sport in China. As made clear earlier, the association, in ideological terms, between
the eventual victory of Chinese women’s volleyball team and its stimulus to Chinese
economic development after 2010 provides an example of the consistency of this
emphasis. Further instances could also be found in the GAS’s official interpretation
of the political task of Chinese elite sport to ‘become a sporting power’ after the
Beijing Olympics, which was recognised as ‘a new beginning for the development of
Chinese elite sport following socialism with Chinese characteristics’, and through the
consequent emphasis on ‘the overall development of elite sports’ in the post-2008 era
by Chinese sport bureaucrats, most of whose political successes are closely linked to
the performances of Chinese elite athletes.
It is important to recognise, as previously argued, that the mass media, particu-

larly privately-owned news outlets, such as Sohu.com and Hoopchina.com, employ
relatively lower standards in terms of performance and more colourful narratives in
their portrayal of Chinese sport heroes than the state-owned media (such as Xinhua
News Agency and the People’s Daily) and official announcements, governmental
documents and speeches of sport bureaucrats.
In addition, the ‘humanistic’ rhetoric in the media, which is different with the
previous instrumentalisation of elite athletes for political purpose, could be argued

to be a consequence of China’s opening-up in cultural terms and of the influence of
Western media in the era of globalisation.
82
Yu, Ying. ‘Olympic Aspirations: Reconstructed Images, National Identity and International Integra-
tion’. The International Journal of the History of Sport 27, no. 16-18 (2016): 2821-2841; Mangan,
J.A. ‘Marketing “Brand China”: Maintaining the Momentum–“The Middle Kingdom” Resurgent
and Resplendent’. The International Journal of the History of Sport 30, no. 10 (2013): 1026–
1036; Manzenreiter, Wolfram. ‘The Beijing Games in the Western Imagination of China: The Weak
Power of Soft Power’. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 34, no. 1 (2010): 29–48.
On the other hand, the change in the discussion of national heroes in sport also re-
flects the ongoing reform of Chinese elite sport from a system financed and run by the
government to a civilian-based one. The change is also consistent with the increasing
influence of commercial interests in Chinese elite sport, particularly in those sports
that are professionalised and are thus require athletes who attract the public. Mean-
while, this new image of sports heroes also redefines the function of sport in China,
which has undergone remarkable development, and, it could be argued, could restruc-
ture Chinese elite sport discourse and further influence the reform (or secularisation)
of Chinese elite sport.
Conclusion
National rejuvenation has been a dominant theme in China since the late 19th cen-
tury. This long lasting national objective has been applied to Chinese elite sport.
Outstanding performance is consequently interpreted as an embodiment of national
restoration. Chinese athletes who excel on the international stage are accordingly
portrayed as national heroes.
In accordance with the politically-defined concept of the Chinese nation, the con-
struction of Chinese national sports heroes embraces not only conventional nation-
alist narrative but also the political rhetoric binding elite athletes to the communist
ideology of the country. In short, to labour the point, a Chinese national sports hero
is the embodiment of both the rejuvenation of the nation and of the superiority of
socialism, more precisely socialism with Chinese characteristics.
However, while in the post-2008 era, the heroic identity of Chinese elite athletes
has been maintained. This is now accompanied by additions to this identity linked
to the media. Additions that reflect a transformation in the Chinese media after the
opening-up of China finally. These additions and are also in line with the current
reform of both the image and culture of Chinese elite sport itself!
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A Special Salience: Media, Iconography, Nationalism:
Modern Chinese Olympic Games and Heroes as Soft Power
‘Projectiles’
Tianwei Ren
Sport is represented, of course, dramatically in the modern media in a variety

of forms–sports news, performers bios, live broadcasts, and feature stories, are
some of the potent instruments for presenting the theatre of modern sport cel-
ebrating performers, performances and recording moments for posterity. And
then there is the cartoon as a simplified and symbolic media medium with its
skillful reductionism: unique in presenting heroism and glory, icons and patri-
ots. Arguably, the global Olympics offer opportunities for cartoon depiction of
special salience for arousing patriotic, even chauvinistic, sentiment, projecting
national iconic athletic heroes and bonding nations. This essay will consider
cartoon portraits in the Chinese media of Chinese athletes during the Beijing
Olympics and the following years as ‘projectiles’ of a proud nationalism, a re-
suscitated nation and political symbols of a New China using soft power to
stride confidently to the centre of the world stage. The establishment of inter-
national esteem and the pursuit of national solidarity were willingly assumed
responsibilities of the Chinese media. The sports cartoon was powerful, con-
structive and incisive in presenting nationalistic, iconographic images in human
form of ‘The Middle Kingdom’ reborn in a new political idiom.
Introduction: Cartoon, Sport, and Nationalism: A Political Perspective
Visual images have become part of everyday discourse.1 Visual rhetoric and has
contributed significantly to our current knowledge of the world; this is especially
true in a world of politics replete with images.2 ‘Visual practice is ... emerging as an
important, and unjustifiably neglected, aspect of political communication research’.3
It has a powerful influence on contemporary international politics. As Edwards and
Ware have said, “In a political environment dominated by the spectacle, political
symbols that have a particularly visual orientation should be first-order objects of
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Edwards, Janis L. and McDonald, C. Austin. ‘Reading Hillary and Sarah: Contradictions of Femi-
nism and Representation in 2008 Campaign Political Cartoons’. American Behavioral Scientist 54,
no. 3 (2010): 317.
50 A Special Salience: Media, Iconography, Nationalism
study”.4
The cartoon is an effective instrument of political and social commentary world-

wide. It employs a bold, figurative reductionism that serves the purpose of not only
interpreting and framing political discourse but offering symbolic constructions of
political and national identities.5 It is value-laden. It is not intended to be fair,6
balanced or objective. Political agendas can be pointedly transmitted via simplified
imagery. Their essence is often satire. Thus not infrequently it serves as sharp po-
litical criticism. The political cartoon can be a simplified, exaggerated or distorted
representation of political reality intended to serve the cause of ‘truth’.7
Sport, as Mangan has noted, is ‘played globally, organised globally, commer-

cialised globally, politicised globally and, ... enjoyed globally – whatever the local
variations, interpretations and nuances –resulted in sport-obsessed global societies
with common “play”, pleasures and purposes’.8 It is a world obsession. At the same
time, sport is also frequently ‘localised’, particularised and ‘nationalistic’ in purpose.
Sport as a modern experience is ‘an institution in which intense forms of nationalistic
emotion are generated’9 It is often inseparable from national identity.10 Not only is
sport is of considerable modern national significance; it is a contemporary form of
nationalism: sports nationalism
Sports nationalism is a ‘complex social phenomena created by ties between a na-

tion–state and its sports’.11 This kind of nationalism, argues Hoberman,
4
Edwards, Janis L. and Ware, Laura. ‘Representing the Public in Campaign Media: A Political
Cartoon Perspective’. American Behavioral Scientist 49, no. 3 (2005): 467.
5
Edwards, Janis. L. ‘Visualizing Presidential Imperatives: Masculinity as an Interpretive Frame in
Editorial Cartoons, 1988-2008’. In Edwards, Janis L. (ed.) Gender and Political Communication
in America: Rhetoric, Representation, and Display. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009): 233-
250.
6
Hernandez, Debra Gersh. ‘Cartoonists Confront Political Correctness’. Editor and Publisher 127,
no. 32 (1994): 14-15.

7
Templin, Charlotte. ‘Hillary Clinton as Threat to Gender Norms: Cartoon Images of the First Lady’.
Journal of Communication Inquiry 23, no. 1 (1999): 20.
8
Mangan, J.A. ‘Prologue’. In Mangan, J.A., Luo, Qing and Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri. (eds.) The
Olympic Games: Asia Rising–London 2012 and Tokyo 2020. (Beijing: Communication University
of China Press, 2007): 2.
9
Lee, Jung Woo and Maguire, Joseph. ‘Road to Reunification? Unitary Korean Nationalism in South
Korean Media Coverage of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games’. Sociology 45, no. 5 (2011): 849.
10
Dong, Jinxia. ‘The Beijing Games, National Identity and Modernization in China’. The Interna-
tional Journal of the History of Sport 27, no. 16-18 (2010): 2798-2820.
11
Tosa, Masaki. ‘Sport Nationalism in South Korea. An Ethnographic Study’. SAGE Open (October
2015): 1.
... is not a single generic phenomenon; on the contrary, it is a complicated socio-

political response to challenges and events, both sportive and non-sportive, that
must be understood in terms of the varying national contexts in which it ap-
pears.12
Communication and contact is now easier than ever given political purpose and
intent. Thus sport is a modern means by which many different nations can meet with
each other. Today a nation’s collective identity can now be can be created, reflected
and transmitted via sport as never before. Furthermore, sport can now more than
ever project national political and geopolitical ambition and global intentions. It is
now a core factor not only in shaping but in promoting nationalism. In this sense,
international sport is an overt or covert tool for the projection of national interests
and international strategies.
The Media is a critical and effective means by which to project via sport national
interests and ambitions on a world stage. And the cartoon is one of the media’s po-
tent instruments of this projection. Cartoon, sport, and nationalism form a ‘Secular
Trinity’13 of great political significance. This essay considers the modern political
cartoon as a means by which to capture the intrinsic and extrinsic means transmit-
ting nationalistic purpose utilizing modern sport as soft power projection. As Ren
and Mangan have noted, ‘ideological values are embedded in the contemporary use
of sport... and the cartoon is recruited as an agent of dissemination of both political
and geopolitical aspirations, intentions and ambitions expressed overtly and covertly
through sport’.14 This essay will further explore this argument that the political car-
toon is a powerful tool in portraying nationalistic, iconographic images in pursuit of
national solidarity and international esteem.
Images of the Chinese Athlete: Political ‘Projectile’ in Media Narratives
The Athlete is a modern symbol of a nation’s global image.15 Athletes are integral
to nationalistic modern media presentation–often a patriotic intermediary between
12
Changing Politics of Sport. (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993): 18.
13
‘Secular Trinity’ is a term coined by J.A.Mangan. I am indebted to him for its use here.
14
Ren, Tianwei and Mangan, J.A. ‘Soft Power Projection: The Cartoon as an Instrument of Political
Projection and a Celebration of Arrival: Beijing 2008, London 2012, Tokyo 2020.’ In Mangan, J.A.,
Luo, Qing and Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri. (eds.) The Olympic Games: Asia Rising –London 2012
and Tokyo 2020. (Beijing: Communication University of China Press, 2007): 18.
15
Mangan, J.A., Dong, Jinxia and Lu, Di. ‘“Glittering Guangzhou”: The 2010 Asian Games–Local
Rivalries, National Motives, Geopolitical Gestures’. In Mangan, J.A., Chu, Marcus P. and Dong,
Jinxia. (eds.) The Asian Games: Modern Metaphor for ‘The Middle Kingdom’ Reborn. (Abingdon,
New York: Taylor & Francis: 2014): 60.
participants and event.16 A nation’s perception of ideology, politics, culture and sport
can be both assimilated and projected through media portrayals of athletes.
Yu Deshan argues that athletes’ media images in China are closely related to po-
litical, cultural and social change and progression.17 He presents three successive
phases of image change in China: the first phase occurred in the ‘Reform and Open
Up’ period–1978 to the end of the 1980s when the athletes were depicted as ‘simple
substances’.18 During this period, China had just emerged from the insular damaging
depressing Cultural Revolution and Chinese communist seclusion. Athletes were
portrayed as revolutionary models of selfless character notable by their contributions
to national ‘substance’ when they won. They were ‘cultivated’ professionally by the
state under the ‘Whole-nation System (Ju Guo Ti Zhi)’, both a political strategy and
administrative system established to develop successful national competitive sport
fully endorsed and propelled by state power and resources.19 As symbols of strength,
dynamics and achievements, they were deemed as national ‘heroes’ and their images
were attached with ‘the ideological traits such as national rejuvenation, national
prosperity, national sense of pride and so on’.20 In the 1980s, the Chinese women
volleyball team had won ‘five consecutive championships’. They became the classic
heroes winning honours for the country, inspiring generations of Chinese people till
today.
The second phase covers approximately the last decade of the 20th century. It was a
transitional period. The athletes’ images projected during this period were complex.
During this time, the government has pursued opening-up reform and carried forward
the market-oriented economic policy for 20 years. Alongside this opening-up, fresh
new ideas, consumer cultures and values, advertising and commercial investment
appeared. Professional sports management mechanisms was also introduced, such
as the club system, which had an influence. The government reduced its financial
support to and administrative control over sports activities. Against this background,
athletes in this period were not just typical role models fighting for national honours
but became brand representatives on TV or game players for earnings. However,
these new images did not deprive top athletes of the glory of their arrival on the
16
Liu, Jing and Deng, Xiujun. ‘All-media Shaping Strategy of Athlete Media Image: In View of Li
Na’s Participation in Grand Slam’. Journal of Wuhan Institute of Physical Education 47, no. 9
(2013): 19-22.
17
See Yu, Deshan. ‘Analysis on Chinese Athletes Media Figures of 30 Years’. Journal of Sports and
Science 30, no. 4 (2009): 73-78. ‘Simple substance’ is a metaphor that these athletes seemed only
have merits without mixing more ‘emotional and defected’ compounds.
18
Ibid.
19
Qin, Chunlin et al. ‘Further Discussion on the Centralized System of Nation’. Journal of Beijing
Sport University 208, no. 4 (2005): 437-439.
20
Yu, ‘Analysis on Chinese Athletes Media Figures of 30 Years’.
global stage. After the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Jiang Zemin, former General Secre-
tary of CPC, praised the Chinese national team by saying: ‘The victory of athletes is
not just a sporting achievement; it wins glory for the Chinese people. Truly through
your actual achievements, you tell the world’s people that the Chinese people have
stood up... the Chinese people are not to be insulted’.21 The halo of nationalism thus
prevailed.
The end of the 20th century until the present day marks the third phase of changes
in athletes’ images – diversification. Reform has been extensively deepened and
widened. Chinese ways of thinking have been greatly influenced by capital and
culture exchanges and so has sport. According to Yu, in 2002, the State Statistics
Bureau put ‘sports’ under the category of culture and entertainment industry.22 This
meant that the state has incorporated sport into the national media business. The
whole-nation system has been challenged to a large extent in terms of its signifi-
cance, objectives and approaches. Top athletes now are not shown as perfect and
unapproachable. Life stories and negative news are given attention and are accepted.
In the 2015 Kazan World Swimming Championships, the Chinese swimmer Sun
Yang withdrew from the 1500-metre freestyle race due to cardiac discomfort. The
audience were sorry to hear the news since Sun is best in this programme and he
was likely to win the gold. They showed their sympathy. Per mainstream opin-
ion, athletes continue to be representatives of the nation, especially at international
sports mega-events. However, their images are not simply tagged as ‘High Grade’
(In Chinese: Gao Da Quan) any more. While athletes have to live up to national
expectations, they are treated as individuals with feelings.
With regard to the three phases, it is clear that the media reflects national issues.
Moreover, it is a political tool to project national will, national ideology and political
agenda. Athletes, especially top athletes, receive attention and experience more
pressure not only from competition but from winning success for the nation. The
media enhances their sense of mission and links their personal involvement with
national interest. Expressions like ‘winning glory for the country’ are still preva-
lent. Before the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, the Chinese weight lifting team was set
its goals: retain three gold medals and strive for a fourth for the men’s team, and
retain two gold medals and strive for a third for the women’s team. Wang Guoxin,
the head coach of the women’s team said, ‘The Weight Lifting team is the army of
21
Jiang Zemin (1926-), Chairman of the People’s Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, core fig-
ure of the third generation of national leaders since 1989. Department of Sport of the National
Sport Committee. (eds.) Nationwide Fitness Data Compilation–Four. People’s Sports Publishing
House, 1995: 156. Cited in Cao, Ben. ‘A Study of Physical Ideology by Chinese Communist Party
Leaders’. PhD Thesis. Shaanxi Normal University, 2007.
22
Yu, ‘Analysis on Chinese Athletes Media Figures of 30 Years’.
gold medals. [It] must have the courage to take responsibility in mega-games and
win glory for China.’23 In February 2017, Ning Zetao, former world swimming
champion, was expelled from the Chinese national swimming team because of his
ignorance to national team rules. A short comment on Phoenix Sports made clear its
anger: ‘We hope but also believe this swimming genius who once won glory for the
country won’t [choose to become another country’s citizen]...’24 This has become a
‘stereotypical’ way of reporting on sports figures. Athletes are politically projected
via media.
With regards to the cartoon, this bold and reductionist visual form of media, to
what extent and in what ways does it reveal national interests when portraying top
athletes? This will now be discussed.
Sport Heroes: Cartoon Portrayals and Nationalistic Iconography
People have always been drawn to hero stories.25 ‘Hero’ is a term that usually
appears in literature when good and evil exist simultaneously. Heroes have certain
attractive qualities, such as self-confidence and ‘a sense of purpose’.26
Studies have described sport as symbolic war and athletes as warriors.27 Athletes
become ‘modern sports heroes’ because of their consistent outstanding performances,
as well as their courage, commitment and tenacity.28 Such heroes are often top na-
tional athletes or those of considerable achievement. Coaches who ensure national
teams win are given similar credit. National political leaders, who contribute to the
development of sport, are also deemed heroes. This will be discussed later.
23
See Phoenix Sports Website. ‘The Olympic Weightlifting Team Has Yet to be Announced. Rio
Olympic Goal: Keep Six and Strive for Eight’. Original published on Beijing Daily, 7 July 2016.
Available at: http://sports.ifeng.com/a/20160707/49310272 0.shtml. (Accessed 12.11.2017).

24
See Phoenix Sports Website. ‘Ning Zetao Have Five Ways to Go. He could still
Win Glory for the Nation’. Source from Heiseliuding, 23 February 2017. Available at:
http://sports.ifeng.com/a/20170223/50724133 0.shtml. (Accessed 12.11.2017).
25
Allison, Scott T. and Goethals, George R. ‘Hero Worship: The Elevation of the Human Spirit’.
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 46, no. 2 (2016): 187-210.
26
Ibid.
27
Chiang, Ying and Chen, Tzu-hsuan. ‘Adopting the Diasporic Son: Jeremy Lin and Taiwan Sport Na-
tionalism’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 50, no. 6 (2015): 705-721; Hoberman,
‘Sport and Ideology in the Post-communist Age’.
28
Sage, George H. Power and Ideology in American Sport: A Critical Perspective. (Human Kinetics,
1998): 185.
Sport heroes are often honoured because of their positive impact on nationalism.
Wong and Trumper assert that people’s recognition of sport heroes increased with a
rise in globalisation coupled with national identity and nationalism.29 Bairner claims
that ‘as the athletes compete and their compatriots support their efforts, there exists a
bond that can often only be understood with reference to the concept of nationality’.30
A hero invariably appears to meet particular needs created by specific cultural and
social circumstances.31 Unlike Europe and the USA, in contemporary China, collec-
tivism is one of the most significant cultural traditions and is a part of the national
ideology. In such a tradition, the ‘individual is responsible to the community; the
realisation of individual value lies in serving the others.’32 So ‘hero’ in the Chinese
sense is given the virtuous trait of ‘serving the others’ and ‘serving the country’.
Chinese sport heroes are frequently allocated such political virtues, by the media and
the public.
How does the cartoon portray these national sport heroes in Chinese social con-
texts? In all, they appear with political agenda. On account of the cartoon’s reduc-
tionist nature, sport heroes are depicted with their most salient features highlighted.
These features are often physical but always depict national and patriotic symbolism,
and a strong visual impact is generated. They comprise a nationalistic iconography.
Depiction of National Symbols
The more dramatic way that Chinese nationalism is linked to sports heroes is by
purposefully depicting them with national symbols, such as the national flag and na-
tional team uniform. On 29 August 2011, in the 110-metre hurdles at Daegu World
Championships in Athletics, the competition between Xiang Liu and the Cuban
athlete Dayron Robles was fierce. Liu was obstructed by Robles and finished third.
Robles was disqualified and Liu was given the silver. The Chinese media said Liu
behaved with grace, demonstrating the ‘national tolerance’ to the world. This was
29
Wong, Lloyd L. and Trumper, Ricardo. ‘Global Celebrity Athletes and Nationalism: Ftbol, Hockey,
and the Representation of Nation’. Journal of Sport 123& Social Issues 26, no. 2 (2002): 168–194.
30
Bairner, Alan. Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization. (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2001): 17.
31
See Bruner, Jerome Seymour. Acts of Meaning. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990);
Bruner, Jerome Seymour. Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. (New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, 2002).
32
Dang, Qun. ‘Individualistic Heroism in American Culture and Collectivist Heroism in Chinese
Culture’. Da Zhong Wen Yi, no. 4 (2016): 179.
Figure 1: ‘Xiang Liu’s Speed and Manners’. Car- Figure 2: The badminton athlete Zhang Ning. Car-
toon by Ruoli Qing toon by Weibin Wang
more valuable than the gold medal.33 The cartoon attached to the report depicted Liu
with a national flag at his back (see Figure 134 ).Although Liu did not come first, he
was deemed a national sports hero thanks to his dignified demeanour. Ning Zhang,
the badminton champion in women’s singles in both the 2004 Athens Olympics and
the 2008 Beijing Olympics was recognised as an honoured veteran. Commentators
said Zhang’s victory in the Olympics reflected the fighting spirit of a veteran who
never surrendered. The cartoon pictured Zhang holding a large national flag like a
soldier holding a military flag (see Figure 235 ). Zhang on this occasion was a symbol
of those virtues that the nation favoured: persistence, composure, fearlessness and
tenacity.
On occasion, cartoonists directly portray the athletes holding medals and wearing
national uniform. Many cases can be found (see Figure 336 and Figure 437 ). This rep-
resentation is more explicit in portraying the successes they achieve for their country.
Such a simple but strong depiction evokes a sense of militant nationalism.
33
Jinhua News. ‘Xiang Liu’s Speed and Manners’. Originally published on Jinhua Daily, 2 September
2011. Available at: http://www.jhnews.com.cn/jhrb/2011-09/02/content 1823111.htm. (Accessed
09.08.2017).
34
Ibid.
35
Shou, Wang. ‘A Veteran Who Never Surrendered’. Henan Business Daily, 17 August
2008. Available at: http://newpaper.dahe.cn/hnsb/html/2008-08/17/content 96422.htm. (Accessed
12.08.2017).
36
Newscartoon. ‘Li Xiao Peng’s Olympic Medals Surpass Li Ning’s’. Pictured in August 2008. Avail-
able at: http://cartoon.chinadaily.com.cn/cartoonview.shtml?id=112175. (Accessed 07.08.2017).
37
China Publishing Group Website. ‘2016 Rio Olympics: Sun Yang by Cartoonists’. Source from
people.cn, 17 August 2016. Available at: http://www.cnpubg.com/digital/2016/0817/30287.shtml.
(Accessed 07.08.2017).
Figure 3: The gymnast Li Xiaopeng. Cartoon by Figure 4: The swimmer Sun Yang. Cartoon by Xi-
Zhiping Li. aodong Zhang.
Projecting Competitive and Friendly Relationships among Athletes
Given the competitiveness in sport, antagonism among athletes is frequent. Caustic

sport cartoons always portray this with exaggeration to portray a superior image of
the athletes they support. This stark visual contrast easily induces hero ‘worship’
not only for the sport heroes but also the nation. Take Xiang Liu. In the 110-metre
hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the American athlete Terrence Tram-
mell jumped the gun, failing the second attempt to start the race. Liu, without being
influenced by the two false starts, ran a flawless race. He won the first place and
matched Colin Jackson’s world record with an identical 12.91. In Figure 538 , Liu is
pictured with the national flag as his inspirational wings, flying with the gold medal
high above. Trammell, is portrayed prone, stretching one arm to his head, being
unable to catch Liu. The cartoon sardonically showed a stronger and faster image of
Liu. In the cartoon, a merciless Chinese athlete soars supremely to victory!
There is an alternative cartoon image. It illustrates friendship and harmony among

competitors from different countries. Over recent decades, China has been pre-
senting an image of a ‘peaceful rising’. This is also a natural way to demonstrate
delivery of he Olympic ideals of being ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’. Figure 6 pictures
a couple of famous athletes: Dan Lin (Chinese) and Lee Chong Wei (Malaysian),
who represent the highest level of men’s singles in badminton. From 2004 to 2018,
Lin and Lee have met 40 times in official games. The Chinese call each of their
games ‘the Lin-Lee Great War’. Lin has won 28 games and lost 12.39 They met in
38
Sina News. ‘Cartoon on New Express Opinion Page: The Undefeated Flying Man Liu Xiang’. Orig-
inally published on New Express, 24 September 2004. http://news.gd.sina.com.cn/observe/2004-09-
24/695239.html. (Accessed 07.08.2017).
39
Sina Sports. ‘Lin said, Lee is His Impetus for Winning. Lee: See You Next Year’. Source from
Xinhua News Agency, 17 March 2018. Available at: http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/2018-03-17/doc-
ifyshfuq6041636.shtml. (Accessed 09.11.2017).
Figure 5: Liu Xiang and Trammell in the 110-metre hurdles games at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Cartoon by Biao Kuang.
the semi-final again in the Rio Games where Lee finally defeated Lin. The cartoon
captured the moment when Lee and Li swapped shirts after the game (See Figure
640 ). It is captioned ‘the greatest opponent ever!’ with Lin saying ‘Go for it’ to
Lee. The cartoon reflects Lin’s generosity, but most of all a feeling of sympathy
and appreciation between the two great sports heroes. The public is glad to see this
inspiring message. Although there is no direct comparisons, the cartoon evokes pride
and satisfaction in the viewers’ observing their country’s hero making friends with
competitors.
‘Always Being a Hero, Irrespective of Success or Failure’

In Chinese tradition, people praise a hero by recognising an individual who shall
‘always be a hero, irrespective of success or failure’.41 A hero’s image must be con-
tested by heroic deeds. Therefore, during the period when a person is evolving into a
40
Sina Weibo. Source from Panda iMedia’s Weibo. Available at:
https://weibo.com/5059190941/E4roXAuWV?type=comment# rnd1511102976452. (Accessed
07.08.2017).
41
Zhan, Lin. ‘An Exploration of the Heroes’ Value in Sima Qian’s Feast at Hong Gate’. Modern
Communication, no. 11 (2016): 86-87.
Figure 6: Dan Lin and Lee Chong Wei swap shirts.
hero, one failure will not obliterate the fact of being a hero. The language of cartoon
is diverse. Although the drawings may be simple, by adding some words, the cartoon
stresses implied ideas verbally. In the 2011 Australian Open Tennis Championships,
Li Na, the best woman tennis-player in China at the time, took the lead from Kim
Clijsters after a two-hour-long fierce game. However, Clijsters, ultimately won the
game. In the cartoon (Figure 742 ), Li Na says, ‘It is okay. Let the trophy fly for a
while’. The other two persons represent the public. One says, ‘Na should have won
the cup. But she just got the plate. It is such a pity’. The other replies, ‘Take it easy!
This time we got the plate, so that we have something to hold the cup next time’.
The comment at the bottom reads, ‘Although Li Na failed, she is great ... We expect
the “Asian best” to work new miracles’.43 For the Chinese public, Li’s failure was a
sad event. However, her defeat served as a foil for her greatness. She was the first
Chinese player to play in a final. Her image as a national sports hero is beyond doubt.
42
Liu, Shouwei. ‘Cartoon: Li Na Defeated but Great Enough. Let the Trophy Fly for a While’.
Sohu Sport, 29 January 2011. Available at: http://sports.sohu.com/20110129/n279152594.shtml.
(Accessed 07.08.2017).
43
Ibid.
Figure 7: Li Na got second place in the 2011 Australian Open Tennis Championships. Cartoon by Liu
Shouwei.
National Leaders as Sport Heroes
National leaders act as principal agents of their nations both figuratively and de
facto.44 Media representations of national leaders are influential in shaping public
opinion of them.45 The cartoon is more people-oriented than high-end art.46 Na-
tional leaders when depicted in cartoons with their most salient characteristics and
representative activities, drew closer to commoners. A welcomed development in
modern China because national leaders were barely pictured in cartoons before Xi
Jinping took office. In the words of one cartoonist, ‘popularization of the leaders is
social progress’.47 When national leaders support sport or even take part, their image
is enhanced and they are considered as supporters of sport. Thereby, by extension,

they become ‘sports heroes’ themselves. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao has
been pictured in one cartoon playing ping-pang (table tennis) and smiling happily
44
Snow, Nancy. Persuader-in-Chief: Global Opinion and Public Diplomacy in the Age of Obama.
(Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books, 2009).
45
Balmas, Meital. ‘Bad News: The Changing Coverage of National Leaders in Foreign Media of
Western Democracies’. Mass Communication and Society 20, no. 5 (2017): 663-685.
46
CNR. ‘Zhu Zizun: Drawing National Leaders like Normal Citi-
zen’. Source from Xinhua News Agency, 3 May 2014. Available at:
http://news.cnr.cn/native/gd/201405/t20140503 515418799.shtml. (Accessed 09.11.2017).
47
Ibid.
(see Figure 848 ). This image has inspired people to play table tennis, the ‘national
ball’ game of China. A recent series of cartoons created by netizens, titled ‘Dada49
and Soccer’ (Da Da Yu Zu Qiu). Figure 9, 10 and 11 are three from the series.50
After Xi Jinping –an ardent and influential soccer fan –became the president of
China, the game has won support it never previously had. These cartoons vividly
illustrate Xi’s personal love for football, his football reforms and his ‘Chinese Soccer
Dream’. Throughout these widely circulated cartoons, Xi has become a hero to all
Chinese people who expect the Chinese football team to improve its performance in
the international arena. Such is the power of the cartoon!
Cartoonists from all over the world create political cartoons. However, China’s
national system, political traditions and ideology impact on Chinese sports cartoons
with special force and is a powerful tool for projecting the nation’s positive image. As
will be seen in the next section, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is an agglomeration
of sport cartoons, especially depictions of sports heroes. This sports mega-event was
a soil in which to root nationalistic iconography in the form of cartoon imagery in
people’s hearts.
The Beijing Olympic Games: A Period of Prosperity for Cartoons
Hosting a modern and international sports mega-events, of course, is not just about
sport; it is a matter of politics and national pride.51 The modern Olympic Games
stand at the apex of all such mega-events. For the host countries, as Mangan et al.,
assert, ‘The rewards of a successful sports mega-event like the Olympic Games can
be extensive. Economically, it can contribute a great deal to a nation’s “added value”,
psychologically, it can greatly boost the morale of a society, and internationally, it
can advantageously raise a nation’s profile. It can change both perceived and ac-
tual paradigms of a nation’.52 This claim was proved by the 2008 Beijing Olympic
Games. With the help of sophisticated media projection and international commu-
nication, the event became a global spectacle and boosted the nation’s self-esteem.
Although there were controversies and disputes, it is clear that China presented the
48
Sina Blog. ‘Celebrities Cartoons’. Source from Tianxiawuzui81’s blog, 2 March 2016. Available
at: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog 4fe7a90b0102w7cb.html. (Accessed 09.11.2017).
49
Xi Jinping is called ‘Xi Dada’ (meaning Uncle Xi) by Chinese people with affiliated intimacy.
50
Yutang Spot. ‘Original Lovely Cartoons Created by Netizens: Dada and Soccer’. Source from
cnwest.com, 2 July 2014. Available at: http://ytsports.cn/news-2695.html?wd=tag:670. (Accessed
13.11.2017).
51
Martinez, Dolores P. ‘Documenting the Beijing Olympics: An Introduction’. Sport in Society 13,
no. 5 (2010): 745-748.
52
Mangan, J.A., Ok, Gwang and Park, Kyoungho. ‘From the Destruction of Image to the Recon-
struction of Image: A Sports Mega-event and the Resurgence of a Nation - the Politics of Sport
Exemplified’. International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 16 (2011): 2339-2364.
Figure 9
Figure 8: The former Chinese president Hu Jintao
plays Ping Pong ball. Cartoon by Zhu
Zizun
Figure 10
Figure 11
Figure 9, 10, and 11: Cartoons from the series: Dada and Soccer (Da Da Yu Zu Qiu).
Figure 10 says: ‘Revitalising football! This dream will come true for sure!’. Figure
11’s caption is: ‘Crake Down the Fake’.
world with an unparalleled Olympics that acted as a strong projection of the country’s
soft power.
Cartoons attracted close attention with regard to the Beijing Olympic Games due
to their sharp and compelling imagery. They were frequently shown together with
the news in the print media. Words alone could not fully support the reporting of
the gripping event. With the development of the internet, some biggest portals at
the time, such as Netease, Tencent, Sohu, and China.com.cn, had columns or web
pages specifically for sports cartoons. In this way, the Beijing Olympics was a car-
toon fiesta that celebrated Chinese nationalism. There were offered solo portraits of
athletes, for example, the series titled ‘Portraits of Athletes of Each Program of the
China Legion’ (See Figure 1253 ); and the series portraying the Olympic champions
(See Figure 13 and 1454 ). These cartoons depicted a winning Chinese team. Positive
images and performances were exaggerated. In China’s traditional perception of
sports competitions, ‘Gold Medal Comes First (Jin Pai Zhi Shang)’ has dominated
for decades.55 Although this perception is being altered of immodesty after criticism,
it never completely vanished from the nationalistic propaganda.
Figure 12: Cartoons from the Series: Portraits of Athletes of Each Program of the China Legion
Chinese cartoon depictions of the Olympic Games are numerous and dynamic.
The country had much to show to the world via the Beijing Olympics. Being such an
effective instrument enhanced national esteem and celebrated of the country’s arrival
on the international stage, cartoons varied in terms of tact vainglorious and boastful.
Informing
When 2008 witnessed the arrival of a summer Olympic Games to China, the country
invested lots of money and energy introducing and publicising itself both domesti-
cally and internationally. The Chinese were both scrupulous and sophisticated. They
53
China.com.cn. ‘Cartoon Portraits of Athletes of Each Program of the China Le-
gion’. 19 August 2008. Available at: http://www.china.com.cn/photo/olympic photo/2008-
08/19/content 16274889 2.htm. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
54
China.com.cn. ‘Cartoon: The Olympic Gold Medal Winners of the China Legion’. 17 August 2008.
Available at: http://www.china.com.cn/photo/olympic photo/2008-08/17/content 16253304.htm.
(Accessed 13.11.2017).
55
Chen, Tingru and Zhang, Jie. ‘The Alternation of the Idea of “Gold Medal Comes First” in Olympic
Games in China’. Sport World (Scholarly), no. 12 (2016): 57.
Figure 13 Figure 14
Figure 13 and 14. Cartoons from the Series: the Olympic Gold Medal Winners of
the China Legion.
paid great attention to details. Some cartoons were designed with obvious Chinese
characteristics, informing the participants and the viewers about the Olympics, Bei-
jing, and China. Xinhua News Agency has invited the cartoonist Zhou Daqing to
create a cartoon series introducing Olympic programs. Zhou integrated Peking Opera
elements with Fu Wa’s56 images and displayed program descriptions in relation with
China’s history, thereby forming a set of impressive and informative cartoons (see
Figure 15, 16 and 1757 ). These cartoons served as appetisers to the Olympic activities
ahead of the Games. The icons and symbols used were unashamedly nationalistic
and historical stressing China’s long and splendid sports culture.
Another famous series comprising 24 cartoons, titled ‘Cartoon: Beijing Olympics

– the Twenty-Four Histories’,58 published by Xinhua News Agency, received wide
attention. Cartoons in this series used traditional Chinese allusions in comparison
56
The Beijing Olympics Mascots.
57
Damoyunyin’s Post. ‘Cartoon Introductions of the Beijing Olympics Programs in
Peking Opera Style’. Source from 360doc.com, 2 November 2014. Available at:
http://www.360doc.com/content/14/1102/10/9427464 421860054.shtml. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
58
Netease Sport. ‘Cartoon: Beijing Olympics–the Twenty-Four Histories’. Source from Xinhua net, 5
August 2008. Available at: http://2008.163.com/08/0805/21/4IK405JQ00742QED.html. (Accessed
13.11.2017).
Figure 15
Figure 16
Figure 17
Figure 15, 16, and 17. Cartoons from the Series: Cartoon Introductions of the Beijing
Olympics Programs. The three programs pictured are: Soccer, Swimming and Boat
Racing.
with the modern Olympic programmes, illustrating old Chinese and new Olympic
stories together. For example, Figure 18, ‘Flying Wheels of Wind and Fire’59 , pic-
tured the cycling programmes and Nezha60 riding on fire wheels. These two things
might never be connected, but the cartoonist found the similarity between the two–
fast speed. Nezha’s story is commonly known by the Chinese. Internally, Chinese
people would consider it interesting and link the programme with common knowl-
edge. It was indeed an effective way to embed the Olympics into Chinese lives.
Again this was a fusion of the Chinese culture with the Olympic Games, which not
only informed the viewers about sport and traditional knowledge, but also fused
national pride, cultural self-esteem and a legitimate legacy.
59
Ibid.
60
A mysterious person in the Chinese fairy stories. One of the Chinese gods.
Figure 18: ‘Flying Wheels of Wind and Fire’. Cartoon from the Series: Cartoon: Beijing Olympics –
the Twenty-Four Histories.
Mobilising
Sport cartoons made during the Beijing Olympics also drew people into the city and
the Games. For the purpose, cartoonists picked memorable, exciting and touching
moments in relation to the Games, inviting people to cherish them. Collective mem-
ories and national sentiments were generated. Figure 19 is a portrait of Juan Antonio
Samaranch, former Chair of the International Olympic Committee.61 Samaranch
was widely known and respected by the Chinese people because of his contributions
to helping China promote its international position on sport and join the Olympic
61
Netease Sport. ‘Cartoon: —- Beijing!’. Source from Xinhua Net, 24 August 2008. Available at:
http://2008.163.com/08/0824/09/4K3R5ATC00742QED.html. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
family. 62 Many Chinese people treasure the moment when Samaranch announced
Beijing to be the host of the 2008 Olympics on 13 July 2001 in Moscow. Figure
19’s caption is ‘—- Beijing!’. The cartoon reproduces Samaranch’s inspiring words
in Moscow together with the logos that China used in its application for hosting the
Games. This cartoon catches the excitement of the Chinese people.
Figure 19: ‘—- Beijing!’ Cartoon by Gao Hui.
Other cartoons undertook this function of mobilisation by depicting victories. For

example, Figure 20’s protagonist is Yang Wei, the champion of the men’s singles
all-around gymnastics.63 The cartoon shows him surrounded by people who are
feverishly cheering for him. This cartoon is not just about the sports hero but also
the enthusiastic participants. It is stimulating for their part, foreign athletes were
treated respectfully as guests and as sports heroes. Most of these foreign athletes
were given special attention for various reasons. Maarten an der Weijden, a swimmer
from the Netherlands, won the gold medal in the 10-kilometre open water marathon
race. He was known to all because he survived leukemia. The Chinese media praised
the Olympic spirit he showed. Figure 21 portrays van der Weijden’s smile on the
podium, a touching moment cherished by many.64 This is another analogous case
62
Zhou, Ying. ‘A Brief Discussion about the Interactions between Samaranch and China’s Sport’.
Guizhou Sports Science and Technology, no. 2 (2010): 1-3.
63
Sports.cn. ‘King of All-around Gymnast: Champion: Yang Wei of the Chinese Gymnast Team’.
Source from Sportsol.com.cn, 21 August 2008. Available at: http://2008.sports.cn/comic/2008-08-
21/1611537.html. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
64
Neteast Sport. ‘Cartoon: Champion who Beat the Disease’. 24 August 2008. Available at:
http://2008.163.com/08/0824/10/4K3S3GB400742QED.html. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
where cartoons have been used to combine cosmopolitanism and nationalism. In

short, cartoons have helped China build up its image as being friendly towards all
global citizens. The cartoonists informed the world that China was coming to the
world, and the world was welcome to come to China.
Figure 20: Yang Wei, the Champion of the men’s individual all-around gymnastics.
Involving and Connecting
Bill Gates rented a traditional Beijing quadrangle dwelling in order to stay and watch
the Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympics on 8 August 2008. The quadrangle
was close to the National Stadium –‘the Bird Nest’. Reports said he paid RMB
100 million RMB as rent.65 Bill Gates was perhaps the most generous ‘fan’ of the
Games. In Figure 22, he is shown waving a flag amidst beer and other beverages.66
The cartoonist has portrayed this special moment as the Beijing Olympic Games
affecting people around the globe. Cartoons faithfully and emphatically evoked a
sense of national confidence, pride and responsibility that the Chinese people felt
in being the host. Figure 23 pictures regular tourists from all over the world with
65
China.com.cn. ‘Cartoon: The Brilliant Olympic Opening Ceremony’. 19 August 2008. Avail-
able at: http://www.china.com.cn/photo/olympic photo/2008-08/19/content 16271875 4.htm. (Ac-
cessed 13.11.2017).
66
Ibid.
Figure 21: Maarten an der Weijden (Netherlands), the 2008 Olympic Champion of the 10km open water
marathon race.
different skin colours coming to the Bird Nest.67 This might be their only time in
Beijing and Beijing would give them warm reception that they would always remem-
ber. This is what the Chinese government intended. The publicity indeed mobilised
and involved common Beijing citizens collectively as hosts. The country encouraged
global involvement.
The Beijing Olympic Games, like all other Olympic Games, connect the world.
Figure 24 is a very interesting depiction of the earth as the focus with China at its
centre!68 Cartoons are legitimating China’s central position via the Olympics. They
are ‘self-congratulations’, trying to show the rest of the world China’s images of to
fame with magnanimity.
67
HSW.cn. ‘Welcome to the Bird Nest’. 21 August 2008. Available at: http://hsb.hsw.cn/2008-
08/21/content 7074047.htm. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
68
Lao Mo. ‘The Legend of Deng Yaping’. Hefei Wanbao, 20 August 2008. Available at:
http://epaper.hf365.com/hfwb/html/2008-08/20/content 20854.htm. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
Figure 22: Bill Gates watched the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. On the cartoon, he said,
‘Although the rent is expensive here, we can save a lot of money to watch the games in the
Bird Nest for free’.
Celebrating
The modern Olympic Games is more than just a sports meeting. It is a global event,
a global gathering, a universal rite! During the Games, celebration becomes a part
of people’s daily lives. They celebrate the competition, the victories, the breaking of
records, the strength of athletes, as well as the humanity and world peace. Celebra-
tion was also an important function that the cartoons undertook–China’s rise to the
centre of the world stage.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics mantra was ‘One World, One Dream’. It was not just
a political catchphrase but a ‘Chinese version of cosmopolitanism’ originating from
China’s traditional philosophy.69 The mantra proclaimed the sprit of ‘Great Harmony
Worldwide’ (Tian Xia Da Tong), stressing that different ideologies and values should
allow interaction, understanding, sharing and convergence.70 It projected the ideal of
‘One World, One dream’. At the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games,
the famous Chinese singer Liu Huan together with the international singer Sarah
Brightman sang the theme song ‘You and Me’. Figure 25 captures that moment
69
Ren and Mangan, ‘Soft Power Projection’.
70
Li, Jingdong. ‘Goals of Self and Others can be Unified, Thus the World can be Harmonized–The
Development of Conflicts and Harmony of the Diversified Values in Contemporary World’. Journal
of PLA Nanjing Institute of Politics 24, no. 1 (2008): 36-38.
Figure 23: Tourists from every part of the world came to the Bird Nest.
when Olympic Five Rings was raised high above all, indicating that the five conti-
nents’ unity: it was a strong symbol of China’s official perception of a united world.71
Chinese cartoonists willingly joined this ‘One World, One Dream’ propaganda and
eulogised cosmopolitanism. Figure 26 portrays people beating drums to cheer for the
boating teams while China’s national flag flies in the middle of the cartoon. People
yell ‘China, Go for it!’ and here for all to see is the banner of ‘One World, One
Dream’.72 To some extent, this is ironic since the cartoon is dominated by the colour
–red which represents China! It reveals blatant Chinese nationalism and nationalist
71
China.com.cn. ‘Cartoon: The Brilliant Olympic Opening Ceremony’. 19 August 2008. Available
at: http://www.china.com.cn/photo/olympic photo/2008-08/19/content 16271875.htm. (Accessed
13.11.2017).
72
Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles (BFLAC) Website. ‘Cartoon Col-
lection: Olympic Art Exhibition’. Cartoon by Chunyang Ye. Available at:
http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/wlw/publish/picture/426/783/list.shtml. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
Figure 24: A figurative cartoon to show that China was the center of attention during the Beijing
Olympic Games.
enthusiasm, while implying China’s ambition was to lead this ‘One World’. Figure
27 was more modest. People dressed in different ethnic clothing raise their hands up
high with the 2008 Olympic emblems printed on their chest. Above their heads hov-
Figure 25: Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman sang the 2008 Olympic Games theme song ‘You and Me’.
ers ‘One World, One Dream’, a message that they appear to be singing.73 Irrespective
of how much the world welcomed these expressions, these cartoons aptly projected
the country’s ideological belief, political intention, and rising ambition. China’s
message of ‘One World, One Dream’ was purposefully etched in people’s minds,
indicating that constructive cosmopolitanism and nationalism could be combined!
73
Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles (BFLAC) Website. ‘Cartoon
Collection: Olympic Art Exhibition’. Caroon by Tao Ying. Available at:
http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/wlw/publish/picture/426/783/list.shtml. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
Figure 26: People yelled for ‘China! Go for it!’ in a boating race. Cartoon by Chunyang Ye.
What’s next? ‘Post-truth’ Sport Cartoon, Social Media and the Internet
Last year, ‘Post-truth’ was declared the word of the year in Oxford Dictionaries.74
The Oxford Living Dictionary defines it: ‘Relating to or denoting circumstances in
which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to
emotion and personal belief’.75 The Economist considered it ‘a reliance on assertions
that “feel true” but have no basis in fact’.76 In academia, this word and the related
phenomenon has also been widely discussed and analysed. Most of the time it is
associated with ‘post-truth politics’. Oxford Dictionaries said post-truth was thought
to have been first used in 1992. However, it said the frequency of its usage increased
by 2000% in 2016 compared with 2015,77 accompanying the Brexit referendum
and Donald Trump’s electoral discourses. The dissemination of media products is
74
BBC News. ‘“Post-truth” Declared Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries’. 16 November 2016.
Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
75
Oxford Living Dictionaries. ‘Post-truth’. Available at:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/post-truth. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
76
The Economist. ‘Post-truth Politics: Art of the Lie’. 10 September 2016. Available at:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2016/09/10/art-of-the-lie. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
77
BBC News. ‘“Post-truth” Declared Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries’.
Figure 27: People from all over the world celebrated ‘One World, One Dream’. Cartoon by Tao Ying.
dependent on whether the public might buy into them! Feelings matter most. It is
professedly a political technique favoured by some politicians, but phenomenally a
new view of life permeating our present-day societies, promoted particularly by the
social media with the help of the internet. It provides a network of channels for the
customised and fictionalised facts to proliferate.
The manifestation is not unknown in China and in the sport cartoon sector. A
collective strength of ‘feeling’ and ‘sharing’ puts sport figures centre stage. This
creating and sharing of sport cartoons has been significantly ‘post-truth’. These
cartoons use true athlete figures but attach fake or imagined stories to them. Some
just focus on some special activities of sport figures and draw up a mock series of
products based on them. The cartoon, by its very nature, tends to be exaggerated,
creative and surreal. Therefore, it is a valuable instrument in transmitting ‘post-truth’
stories and capturing people’s interest. In China, however, the ‘post-truth’ cartoons
are usually created out of cartoonists’ own interests. In addition, in some cases they
help the promotion of Chinese national sentiment. The cartoon lends itself well to
this form of use.
A case is about an athlete who rose to fame after the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Fu Yuanhui, a young Chinese female swimming athlete, was perhaps the most fa-
mous Chinese person of that Olympic period. Fu swam into the women’s 100-metre
backstroke final with 58.95 seconds in the semi-final, setting her personal best in the
game. After the game, she was interviewed about how she thought of her perfor-
mance. She asked the reporter how fast she swam. After she learnt that she made
it 58.95 seconds, she showed a very surprising face and said, ‘How could I be so
fast?’ The reporter then asked whether she had saved some strength for next day’s
final, she responded, ‘[I swam] without any reservations. I have used my “Prehistoric
powers”!’ Moreover, when she was asked whether she had high hopes for the final,
her answer was unexpected: ‘No. I am already very satisfied. I am very satisfied with
the result of the semi-final!’78 She received another interview after the final. When
she came to know that she was slower than the silver medal winner by a centi-second,
she said, ‘Perhaps my hand is shorter. If it is longer, the second place could have
been mine’.79 Her facial expressions were very rich. A number of cartoonists fancied
her sense of humour and funny facial expressions and made series of Fu’s figures
based on this interview (see Figure 28 and 2980 ). Soon after, she suddenly became
the nation’s favourite athlete, not because she won a medal for China but because she
was frank and facetious and dared to unpretentiously express herself. The Chinese
media praised her. Many foreign media also commented that China was changing
on its perception of sport: it did not merely focus on the number of gold medals
and had begun to pay attention to athletes’ personal character and freewill.81 At
the same time, the Chinese people started welcoming media’s portrayals of athletes’
‘multi-faces’. Cartoons in these cases played an irreplaceable role as no other media
could more vividly and amusingly present the athletes’ body languages. Although
national morale is not directly shown via the ‘post-truth’ cartoons, they allow the
country to make a difference in the international society.
78
CCTV.com. ‘Rio Olympics: Fu Yuanhui Entered Women’s 100-meter Fi-
nal: Have used “Prehistoric Powers”’. 8 August 2016. Available at:
http://news.cctv.com/2016/08/08/ARTIRVkeFkdalB6wzGn29FLS160808.shtml. (Accessed
13.11.2017).
79
Pei, Li. ‘Fu Yuanhui Don’t Know She Got a Bronze Medal, Sighed Missing Silver
because of Shorter Hand’. Source from Sohu Sports, 9 August 2016. Available at:
http://2016.sohu.com/20160809/n463268854.shtml. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
80
5sing. ‘Prehistoric Powers, Fu Yuanhui’s Song, Rio Olympics’. 12 August 2016. Available at:
http://5sing.kugou.com/fc/15380056.html. (Accessed 13.11.2017); ishuo.cn. ‘A Complete Col-
lection of the Cartoons of Fu Yuanhui’s Facial Expressions’. 21 February 2017. Available at:
https://www.ishuo.cn/subject/znnjgu.html. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
81
Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) Website. ‘Hot Topics among Public’. Source
from New Media Magazine, 23 December 2016. Available at: http://www.cac.gov.cn/2016-
12/23/c 1120168890.htm. (Accessed 13.11.2017).
Figure 28: Fan pictured Fu Yuanhui saying ‘I have used my “Prehistoric powers”’.
Conclusion
The cartoon has been an effective instrument of political projection and social com-
mentary for modern nations. For China, the cartoon is a perfect means of positive
domestic political projection serving China’s rise to the world stage peacefully. At
the same time, sport is where nationalism and national interests are largely exerted.
Under China’s ideological intentions, political ambitions and cultural traditions,

images of athletes and sports heroes are attached high importance as they signify
physical progression. Sports cartoons of sports heroes make them the nation’s icons
of success, strength and power. Cartoon expressions are purposefully used, demon-
strating the heroes’ greatness by their heroic failures as well as soaring successes and
depicting national political leaders as iconic heroes. Moreover, cartoon portraits of
sport mega-events are also valuable in transmitting national and political values. In
this regard, the Beijing Olympic Games provide of exceptional opportunity for China
to assert these values through sports cartoons. Cartoons helped enhance China’s na-
tional image by disseminating information about sport and the country as a whole,
Figure 29: Fan pictured Fu Yuanhui shouting ‘Ha!’
mobilising people to watch and participate in the Games, ensuring also the world’s
involvement and increasing connectivity, and celebrating China’s rise and global
arrival. Furthermore, with the support of the internet and social media, a kind of
‘post-truth’ sport cartoon has been created by interest groups and transmitted widely
on the internet. These cartoons promote political values. They also represent China’s
changing values vis-à-vis sport, reflecting that the country now as much if not more
focuses on people rather than medals.
In summation, this essay has been an attempt to explore a new relationship be-
tween cartoon, sport and nationalism. In this explanation, hopefully this essay tills
the rich soil of a fertile field of political projection, persuasion and transmission.
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National Renaissance, International Assertion, New Global
Image: China and the Modern Olympic Games: Media
Opportunities for the Projection of a Forceful Nationalism
Ying Jiang
By means of an analysis of the political significance of China’s involvement in

modern Olympic Games, this essay argues that sport plays an integral role in
Chinese nationalism and the media plays a vital role in the projection of nation-
alism in sport. Sport is a fundamental aspect of national unity, soft power pol-
itics and diplomatic strategy. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) in 1949, sport has become an inseparable part of Chinese na-
tionalism, and the backbone of China’s foreign policy in modern times. China’s
interest in the Olympics coincided with a search for a positive national identity
and a commitment to internationalization. This essay discusses how the role of
the media is critical in the projection of a modern Chinese nationalism.
Introduction: Modern Sport- More than ‘Just a Game’!
A young Australian with a Chinese background, who was working for the Beijing
Olympics in China, wrote at the time, ‘I am disappointed that many Chinese people
seem to have abandoned the Olympic spirit in the name of patriotism... they are
claiming sole ownership of these Games as theirs alone, to organize as they please
so they can prove how far they have come’.1 The Chinese government and popular
nationalists have justified their sentiment as being sparked by international criticism
over China’s policies, the young Australian was concerned that the nationalist sen-
timents came from ‘a place in which young people want not only to deconstruct the
mainstream but fight it as well’.2
Over the last thirty years, Eric Dunning’s claim that ‘sport matters’3 has been
widely accepted in social science scholarship.4 The innovative contribution of The
International Journal of the History of Sport and the series Sport in the Global
1
Zhao, Yuezhi. Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict. (Lanham Mary-
land: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008).
2
Shum, Keane. ‘Why the Games Bring out Ugly Side of the Chinese’. Sydney Morning Herald, 30
July 2008. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/why-the-games-bring-out-ugly-
side-of-the-chinese-20080729-3msr. (Accessed 08.08.2008).
3
See also Bromberger, C. ‘Football as a Relevant Subject for Serious Study: Looking Back on Per-
sonal Experience’. Paper Presented at Kick-Off Conference for the Football Research in an Enlarged
Europe (FREE) Project, ESSCA School of Management, Angers, 20 April 2012; and Carrington,
Ben. ‘Introduction: Sport Matters’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 35, no. 6 (2012): 961-970.
4
Dunning, Eric. Sport Matters: Sociological Studies of Sport, Violence, and Civilization. (London:
Routledge, 1999).
84 National Renaissance, International Assertion, New Global Image
Society inter alia has consolidated this claim. These emphatically seminal innova-
tions, in particular, have advanced academic acceptance and have fittingly promoted
modern sport’s impact in global economic, cultural and political analysis. This has
established sport as a powerful facilitator, provider and resource for an ‘array of
identities’.5 However, it certainly does not imply that sport should be understood
as a ‘quasi autonomous [social] institution’ or a ‘kind of self-sufficient [...] sub-
system’, but rather as a ‘constitutive element of everyday life and popular culture’
taking place ‘within a particular social and historical setting’.6 More than this, it is
apparent to any intelligent analyst that modern sport is an integral component of con-
temporary politics and geopolitics. Now where is this more evident than in East Asia.
Nationalism is defined as individual’s loyalty and devotion to the specific nation

state. Hobsbawm has argued that sport could be contextualised as a national struggle
between nations, where national identities are continually shaped and reshaped by
states, athletes and supporters.7 Through participating in international sports com-
petitions, nations states can promote their self-images, enhance their international
reputations and boost the morale of their people.8 Athletes’ performance hence
signifies state power on ‘a level playing field’ (e.g. the Olympic Games). A national
team’s success strengthens national prestige, pride and dignity. Thus national com-
munities are deeply emotional when supporting their national teams. International
sports competition is ‘more than just a game’: it is a matter of national pride.
Chinese nationalism has been expressed and observed in international sports com-
petitions since the 1980s. Following Deng Xiaoping’s discourse ‘Improve the Level
of Performance, Win Honour for the Country’9 ; the Chinese government and its
people believe that athletes’ excellent performance in Olympic Games could high-
light the nation’s achievement alongside economic reform and state modernization.
From then on, substantial resources have been invested in China’s sports develop-
ment: sporting success was seen as an effective way to demonstrate China’s power
at a global level. In light of the closer relationship between sport and nationalism,
China’s Sports Ministry established the ‘Olympic Strategy’ with the aim to develop
5
Maguire, Joseph A. et al. Sports Worlds: A Sociological Perspective. (Champaign: Human Kinetics
Publishers, 2002): 143.
6
Tomlinson, Alan, Horne, John and Whannel, Garry. Understanding Sport: An Introduction to the
Sociological and Cultural Analysis of Sport. (New York: Routledge, 2005): xiv.
7
Hobsbwam, Eric John. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Progaganda, Myth, Reality (Second
edition). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
8
Leiper, J.B. and Maughan, R.J. ‘Experimental Models for the Investigation of Water and Solute
Transport in Man: Implications for Oral Rehydration Solutions’. Drugs 36, no. 4 (1988): 65-79.
9
Lu, Zhouxiang and Fan, Hong. The Politicisation of Sport in Modern China: Communists and
Champions. (London: Routledge, 2013).
elite sport and transform China into a leading sports power.10 As He Zhenliang,
Chairman of the IOC Commission for the Culture of Olympic Education stated, the
most significant outcome of the Beijing Games will be ‘the elevation of our Chinese
people’s self-confidence and sense of pride’.11 The elite sports system is, indeed, a
top-down, tightly structured nationwide policy, which the top-level controlled and
managed from the top to achieve Olympics medals. Local and regional sports com-
missions are responsible for talented youth selection and professional training. Under
the elite sports system, despite the physical and psychological strain exerted, athletes
are obligated to devote all their energy to earning glory for the country, which is
arguably similar to the Soviet-style training system. The ‘Olympic Strategy’ and
elite sports system, however, could not have succeeded without an intense Chinese
nationalist spirit.12
Historical Overview of Chinese Nationalism from 1949 to 2008
There is a need first of all to clarify briefly the origins of this intense Chinese nation-
alism. Chinese nationalism is of long standing: some scholars argue that nationalism
was transformed by Confucianism in ancient China.13 Others argue that it originated
in 1895 after the first Sino-Japan War and formed in an atmosphere of bitter anti-
foreignism.14 I agree with the latter view because before 1895, the key elements of
nation-state mentality and nationality were missing in China.15
Prior to the war, the Chinese nation did not even have an official name or a na-
tional flag, let alone the elements of a nation-state. Liang Qichao, one of the most
influential Chinese scholars and journalists at that time, wrote, ‘nothing makes me
more ashamed than the fact that our nation has no name’,16 and ‘we Chinese had no
10
Fan, Hong and Lu, Zhouxiang. ‘Representing the New China and the Sovietisation of Chinese Sport
(1949-1962)’. The International Journal of the History of Sport 29, no. 1 (2012): 1-29.
11
Dong, Jinxia and Mangan, J.A. ‘Beijing Olympic Legacies: Certain Intentions and Certain and
Uncertain Outcomes’. In Mangan, J.A. and Dyerson, Mark. (eds.) Olympic Legacies: Intended and
Unintended–Political Cultural, Economic, Educational. (London: Routledge, 2009): 136-157.
12
Lam, Dickson. ‘Sports, the New Ping-Pang Table? Nationalism, the 12th Man?’ The Market
Mougul, 2 February 2016. Available at: http://themarketmogul.com/sports-new-ping-pong-table-
nationalism-12th-man/. (Accessed 12.02.2016).
13
Levenson, Joseph Richmond. Modern China and Its Confucian Past: The Problem of Intellectual
Continuity. (New York: Anchor Books, 1964).
14
Wei, C. X. George and Liu, Xiaoyuan. Chinese Nationalism in Perspective: Historical and Recent
Cases. (Lanham, Maryland: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001): 102.
15
Ibid.
16
Liang, Qichao. A Narrative Analysis of Chinese History [Zhongguoshi Xulun]. In Yinbingshi heji 1:
3. (Beijing: Zhongguo Shuju, 1989): 3.
idea of the nation-state’.17 Sinologist and historian Immanuel C.Y. Hsu also noted,
‘doubtless, imperial China was not a nation-state’.18 China did not wake to nation-
alism until the Sino-Japanese War when it was defeated by long-despised Japan and
lost Hong Kong and other territories to Britain and other European powers. To quote
Liang Qichao again, the first Sino-Japanese War, ‘awakened China from the great
dream of four thousand years’.19 After the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese people not
only realized that China was not the self-styled Middle Kingdom of the world and
accepted the equality of the states of the world, as well as concepts such as the nation-
state and national sovereignty.20 As Murata Yujiro has concluded, ‘the concept of
the nation-state replete with sovereignty and territory took shape in modern China at
the end of the nineteenth century after the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War’.21
For Chinese intellectuals that time, the Sino-Japanese War left them with a new
realisation: a strong national identity was important for constructing a strong Chinese
nation-state.22 This realisation became the intellectual and political basis for the
formation of China’s nationalism.23 Therefore, as Zhao concludes,
whereas European nationalism developed in an indigenous process driven by

the combined force of mercantilism and liberalism, nationalist consciousness
in China was triggered by external stimulus.24
Hence, ‘external stimulus’ was the modern derivation of Chinese nationalism, and
the term Zhonghua minzu (Chinese people or nation) was connected tightly with
the nationalistic warnings of the danger of national annihilation under external inva-
sion.25
In addition, the shaming defeats in a series of military confrontations with the

West in the century of what Chinese called the ‘Century of Humiliation’ (from mid
17
Liang, Qichao. On New Citizenship [Xinmin Shuo]. (Taipei: Zhonghua Shuju, 1959): 35.
18
Hsu, Immanuel Chung-yueh. China’s Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase.
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960): 69.
19
Liang, A Narrative Analysis of Chinese History, 113.
20
Wei and Liu, Chinese Nationalism in Perspective, 102.
21
Yujiro, Murata. ‘Dynasty, State, and Society: The Case of Modern China’. In Fogel, Joshwa A.
and Zarrow, Peter Gue. (eds.) Imagining the People: Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of
Citizenship 1890–1929. (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997): 113–142.
22
Wei and Liu, Chinese Nationalism in Perspective, 103.
23
Ibid.
24
Zhao, Suisheng. A Nation-state by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. (Stan-
ford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004): 50.
25
Kim, Samuel S. and Dittmer, Lowell. ‘Whither China’s Quest for National Identity?’ In Dittmer,
Lowell and Kim, Samuel S. (eds.) China’s Quest for National Identity. (New York: Cornell Uni-
versity Press,1993): 252.
1800s) gave rise to a powerful surge in Chinese nationalism.26
The term ‘Century of Humiliation’ now requires explanation. In 1636, the

Manchus renamed their kingdom Qing and took over China from the Han.27 The
rulers of the Qing Dynasty viewed the Emperor as the Son of Heaven and the Chi-
nese considered themselves as the centre of the universe.28 The Chinese name for
China, Zhongguo, translated as ‘The Middle Kingdom’ illustrates their conviction as
the centre of the universe. The Qing Dynasty looked upon foreigners as barbarians,
hence, did not want to open up China for trade with other countries.29 Although the
rulers of Qing declared the only legal port, Guangzhou in Canton for foreign trade in
1757, the strict foreign trade policy that time caused strained relationships between
China and other countries.30
The Qing Dynasty encountered many problems during the 19th century when
China had lost both Opium Wars, and the country was in economic and military
decline. Due to the heavy loans and debts resulting from the wars, the Qing govern-
ment had to not only increase taxes to pay for their cost, but also increase foreign
trade.31 The increasing foreign trade opened up China and accelerated the arrival
of the century of China’s ‘pushing around by outside powers’, from 1842 to World
War II.32 China had to sign a series of ‘unequal treaties’ with Western countries and
Japan, which weakened both the country’s territorial integrity and its sovereignty.33
This century was its ‘bainian guochi’ (Century of Humiliation).
Therefore, these events determined that Chinese nationalism would contain a

strong anti-foreign sentiment. But how should the rise of China’s Generation Y’s re-
sentment to the West today be understood? Is it a continuation of the old anti-foreign
sentiment or does it represent something new? This is perhaps the central issue in
understanding China’s nationalism today, so it is essential investigate this question.
It is not necessary to go through the whole history of Chinese nationalism in

this brief study but it is important to appreciate that the first major turning point of
26
Zhao, A Nation-state by Construction, 50.
27
Wang, Ke-wen. Modern China: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism. (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998): 11.
28
Tyson, Ann Scott. Chinese Awakenings: Life Stories from the Unofficial China. (Boulder, Col-
orado: Westview Press, 1995): 116.
29
Wang, Modern China.
30
Dillon, Michael. China: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary. (London: Routledge, 1998): 38.
31
Scott, David. China and the International System, 1840-1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in
a Century of Humiliation. (New York: SUNY Press, 2008): 11.
32
Ibid., 12.
33
Wang, Modern China.
Chinese nationalistic sentiment was when the CCP took power in 1949. Therefore,
Chinese nationalism in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded by
the CCP will now be analysed, but even analyzing Chinese nationalism from 1949
to 2008 is difficult in a short overview like this, not only because the definition of
nationalism itself is ambiguous but also because, as Wang Gungwu points out, the
study of Chinese nationalism is a many-layered and multi-faceted phenomenon.34
Thus it is difficult to highlight all aspects of Chinese nationalism in a single study. To
make it manageable and to make it more relevant to this particular research, Chinese
nationalism will be divided into four parts: 1949 to 1976 the Mao era; 1976 to 1989,
after Mao’s death before the Tiananmen Square incident; 1989 to 2001 (after the
Tiananmen Square incident before China was elected to host the 2008 Olympics);
and 2001 to 2008 (the preparation and the host of Beijing Olympics). The focus will
be on the attitudes towards Western ideologies in each period and the exercises of
governmental power in forming these attitudes.
In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded the new China on the ba-
sis of anti-Japanese sentiment. The CCP has built its legitimacy on its nationalist
credentials ever since.35 Hence, Chinese nationalism was expressed in a ‘victor nar-
rative’ of heroic Chinese victories over Western and Japanese imperialism at that
time.36 The nationalistic sentiment continued its anti-imperialist narrative, but more
importantly, contained strong worship for the leader, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, due to
Mao’s mythic heroic image.37 It was exercised from the top based on the worship for
Mao. Mao was seen as a true nationalist and is widely credited with restoring China’s
dignity.38 As Kluver states,
Mao stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in 1949 and proclaimed that ‘The
Chinese people have stood up’, thus visually illustrating his point while further
fusing his image with the national identity of the Chinese people.39
The CCP came into power on the basis of anti-Western and Japanese imperialism
in 1949, it then proceeded to ‘chisel out a national identity by introducing the Soviet
34
Wang, Gungwu. The Revival of Chinese Nationalism. (Leiden: International Institute for Asian
Studies, 1996).
35
Gries, Peter Hays. ‘Nationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy’. In Deng, Yong and Wang, Fei-Ling.
(eds.) China Rising: Power and Motivation in Chinese Foreign Policy. (Maryland: Rowman &
Littlefield 2005): 105.
36
Ibid., 106.
37
Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. (Austin: Touchstone, 2003).
38
Zheng, Yongnian. Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, and Inter-
national Relations. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
39
Kluver, Alan R. Legitimating the Chinese Economic Reforms: A Rhetoric of Myth and Orthodoxy.
(New York: SUNY Press, 1996): 28.
Union as the dreamland’ after the new Chinese nation was built.40 The CCP fol-
lowed its Soviet Union brother’s revolutionary journey, adopted the Marxist-Leninist
doctrine of nationalism by which political behaviour can be reduced to economic
interests.41 Therefore, nationalism was regarded as either a ‘disguised economic
interest’ or in Marxist term as ‘false consciousness’ that misled people and stopped
them from pursuing their ‘true’ class interests.42 The whole country was enthusiastic
for close connections with the Soviet Union: invitations to Soviet specialists became
national policy, and every area of administration was open and ready for Soviet
instruction.43 But Mao soon found this ‘apprenticeship’ was in serious conflict with
the goal of the Chinese nationalists; that is, to build a strong and independent nation-
state.44 This conflicting interest ended China’s honeymoon with the Soviet Union in
1960.45 The concept of nationalism was then replaced with ‘patriotism’, and to build
a strong Chinese nation as a whole so that it becomes the identity of all Chinese was
strengthened by the CCP.46 Mao’s ideology of ‘patriotism’ can be interpreted as anti-
imperialism, anti-feudalism, anti-Confucianism, and anti-capitalism.47 The mythic
image of Mao was then used to help stabilize the new government and legitimize the
policies of the new government.
Scholars have described Mao as the greatest hero of the Chinese national epic.48
The Cultural Revolution which brought the nation chaos illustrates the rhetorical
power of Mao’s mythic image best. Jung Chang describes the mysterious cult of
Mao in her memoirs of growing up during the Culture Revolution,
Mao made himself more godlike by shrouding himself in mystery. He always
appeared remote, beyond human approach... Mao, the emperor, fitted one of
the patterns of Chinese history: the leader of a nationwide peasant uprising
who swept away a rotten dynasty and became a wise new emperor exercising
absolute authority. And, in a sense, Mao could be said to have earned his god-
emperor status. He was responsible for ending the civil war and bringing peace
and stability... It was under Mao that China became a power to be reckoned
with in the world, and many Chinese stopped feeling ashamed and humiliated
at being Chinese.49
40
Wei, C. X. George and Liu, Xiaoyuan. Exploring Nationalisms of China: Themes and Conflicts.
(Lanham, Maryland: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002): 83.
41
Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China, 69.
42
Ibid.
43
Wei and Liu, Exploring Nationalisms of China, 83.
44
Ibid., 90-94.
45
46
Ibid., 70.
47
Zhang, Xudong. Whither China? Intellectual Politics in Contemporary China. (Durham, North
Carolina: Duke University Press, 2001): 264.
48
Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005).
49
Chang, Wild Swans, 137.
After the death of Mao in 1976, Deng Xiaoping started a modernization program
aimed at making China stronger and richer. From 1976 to 1989, Chinese nation-
alism was switched to a phase of pro-Western ideologies. During this phase and
before the crack down on the 1989 Tiananmen movement, the exercise of ‘pastoral
power’ that is ‘tied up with its notion of the living individual and his/her needs’ took
place.50 With the implementation of the reform and opening policy in the 1980s,
the living standards of Chinese people improved significantly due to the rapid eco-
nomic growth.51 Between 1981 and 1991, the ratio of household colour television
set increased from less than 1 percent to 70 percent.52 Meanwhile, the Western ideas
include ‘democracy’ flourished into China. According to a nationwide survey in
1987, 75 percent of Chinese were tolerant of the inflow of Western ideas, and 80
percent of Chinese Communist Party members held a similar attitude.53 Moreover,
due to the fast growing economy, the desire of Chinese intellectuals for the democ-
ratization of China became intense. They believed that it was the traditional culture
of China hindered the country’s democratization and the future of China depended
on the thorough westernization.54 The Chinese nationalists’ statue of the ‘Goddess
of Democracy’ during Beijing Spring in 1989 tells of their desire to promote the
construction of democracy in China.55
The 1989 movement for democratization didn’t succeed. For Chinese leaders, the
purpose of political reform was not to weaken the Party but to stabilize it.56 And the
1989 movement caused a return to the exercise and excesses of sovereign power. The
sustained economic development in the 1990s began to satisfy Chinese individual’s
needs. During this stage, Chinese nationalistic sentiments were shaped from both top
down and bottom up. After the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, especially after Jiang
Zemin took over power in 1992, nationalism was promoted as a dominant discourse
in China and it was in this era Chinese nationalism turned back to its anti-Western
sentiment.
It was argued that the CCP’s promotion of nationalism as a new ideology was
due to several reasons, include the collapse of European communism, the reflection
on Western culture in China, and the mismatch between a changing society and an
50
Dean, Mitchell. The Constitution of Poverty: Toward A Genealogy of Liberal Governance. (New
York: Routledge, 1991): 81.
51
52
Ibid.
53
Min, Qi. Political Culture in China [Zhongguo zhengzhi wenhua]. (Kunming: Unnan renmin
chubanshe, 1989): 128.
54
Su, Xiaokang. Heshang [River Elegy]. (Beijing: Xian Dai Chu Ban She, 1988).
55
Gries, Peter Hays. Chinese New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2004): 6.
56
Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China, 51-52.
old ideology.57 First of all, what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
influenced the thinking of Chinese intellectuals on the traditional ideology. As Sun
Liping writes,
Chinese intellectuals believe that social disintegration is a more serious threat

to China than social stagnation and conservatism, that political and social chaos
will follow the decline of the traditional ideology and the worsening of social
crises. Therefore, it was necessary to promote nationalism as a new ideology.58
Second, Chinese intellectuals began to view critically information about the West.
While they believed China had to experience thorough westernization before 1989,
the Western impact was considered ‘negative’ in its impact on Chinese traditional
culture in the 1990s. Also, the West’s attitude towards the rise of China was also
questioned by Chinese, particularly when the West imposed severe conditions on
China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.59 In addition, the ‘old’ ideology
had become outdated in China since the beginning of the reform and opening up in
1978. A new ideological approach was needed to manage the changing society, and
nationalism was the best candidate.60
Interestingly, Chinese nationalists in this phase appear to be fond of the ‘victim-

ization’ narrative of the ‘Century of Humiliation’.61 They question the inflow of the
Western culture that started flooding into China in the late 1990s. In 1997, Song
Qiang, the author of the aforementioned 2009 nationalistic book Unhappy China re-
flected on the materialism of his generation: ‘cultural and spiritual fast food has taken
over’.62 This generation believe they are the defenders of China’s stability whereas
the generation before 1989 was dangerously romantic and radical.63 An illustrative
example here is the ‘8 May’ nationalist protests of 1999: the demonstration with a
painting of the skeleton of the statue of liberty which was in sharp contrast with the
1989’s ‘Goddess of Democracy’.
However, it is very important to note that although Chinese nationalists demon-

strated their resentment to the Western liberty in this era, the desire for democracy
still existed. What were resisted by Chinese nationalists were the Western model of
57
Ibid., 51.
58
Sun, Liping. ‘Flowing Together with the World’s Mainstream Civilization [Huiru Shijie zhuliu
wenning-minzu zhuyi santi]’. DF, no. 1 (1996): 17.
59
Ibid.
60
Chen, Shaoming. ‘Nationalism: A Way for Revival? [Min zu zhu yi: Fu xing zhi dao?]’. DF, no. 2
(1996): 74.
61
Gries, ‘Chinese New Nationalism’, 4.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid., 5.
democratization and the Western theories of development. They believed Western-

ization was the cause of China’s national and cultural identity crises, thus, China’s
modernization should be separate from Westernization, and the future development
of China should rely on ‘Chinesenization’ rather than Westernization.64
However, the anti-westernization narrative started to change after 2001 with the
rising of China’s post-80s generation and with the inspiring achievements China
made in 2001 when Beijing was elected as the 2008 Olympic host city, Shanghai
hosted APEC, China successfully joined the WTO, and China’s national football
team got a pass to the World Football Cup for the first time in China’s history. This
first year of the 21st Century was called ‘Chinese year’ and seen as a very good
symbol of China in the new century.65 The issue of China’s ‘national and cultural
identity crises’ due to Westernization expressed by the previous wave of nationalism
was gradually replaced by this new wave’s pride and ‘victor narrative’.
The resurgence of Chinese nationalism after 2001 presented by Chinese young

generation which has attracted the biggest attention around the world in 2008,
demonstrated something powerful and different from the previous nationalists: an
overwhelming and extreme pride in the country and its central government. However,
the inflow of Western ‘cultural and spiritual fast food’ questioned by the previous
generation of nationalists, is beloved by this young generation. The anti-West ideol-
ogy has shifted from entirely anti/pro-Western to the young nationalists’ paradoxical
feelings towards the West embracing the extreme embrace of Western culture while
sharply resenting Western political ideologies.
The Internet Generation: Patriotism and Counter-Protest
The Internet as a tool of expression for this generation’s nationalistic sentiments

has become a distinguishing feature of this wave because this generation is the first
generation to grow up with the Internet in China. While the consumerist ideology
dominates the Internet and is represented largely through the young generation’s
online behaviour and a passion for political issues that involves China’s image, is
also spread and strengthened via the Internet.
The 2008 anti-CNN campaign is an illustrative example of the latest Chinese

nationalistic sentiment. While high emotions were expressed in the anti-CNN fo-
64
65
China Economy Net. ‘Reviewing China’s Economy’. 11 November 2009. Available at:
http://www.ce.cn/ztpd/xwzt/guonei/2009/2009jj/index.shtml. (Accessed 07.06.2018).
rum after CNN’s coverage on Tibet and other Western coverage on Olympic torch
relay in 2008, young Chinese also expressed their love for China and support for
Beijing’s Olympic Games via MSN messenger. They added a symbol of red heart
to their MSN names and placed the English word ‘China’ next to the red heart. The
consistent action of expressing ‘love China’ via MSN was in order to oppose the
Western media’s coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games protests: the representation
of Chinese national identity by means of Internet - the resentment of the West and the
extreme pride of China - which distinguishes this latest wave of Chinese nationalism
from its predecessors.
In November 2013, an anonymous post titled ‘You Are Nothing Without the Moth-
erland’ gradually gained momentum online. It has since been reposted by numerous
Chinese media such as the Beijing Daily and the Global times. The post used the
‘fallen-apart’ Arabic Spring countries as examples to call for the Chinese people to
stay alert for ‘Western anti-China powers’, because the ultimate victim of ‘social in-
stability is the ordinary people’.66 ‘A strong and stable motherland is the only way for
the Chinese people to be happy and free’, the article argued. It specifically pointed up
the conspiracies by Western countries to bring down any potential rival. In particular,
the US, which ‘now lists China as its biggest threat’. ‘Everybody knows that the US
has been plotting to overthrow the rule of the Chinese Communities Party (CCP).67
Peaks of Nationalistic Waves and the Olympic Games from 2008 to 2016
Based on a series of remarkable events, the development of the anger towards Western
media will now be divided into five periods: 2005, 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2016. As
the events of Olympic Torch Relay will illustrate, Chinese nationalist ‘waves’ from
2008 to 2016 are close connected with Olympic games. Furthermore, it is evident
that each surge of nationalism waves was triggered by media coverage.
Year 2005: the First Wave
Chinese bloggers’ complaints about the Western media started with a famous Chi-
nese blogger Wang Jianshuo, who was interviewed by the BBC in 2005. After the
interview, Wang posted his unhappy feelings about the BBC on his blog:
66
J.M. ‘Social Stability: The Case for a Heavy Hand’. The Economist, 14 December 2013. Available
at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/12/social-stability. (Accessed 07.06.2018).
67
Ibid.
BBC interview–censorship question interview. There are too many pre-defined

questions like censorship and BBC is trying to find piece of information, filter
it and create an exciting picture for people in the ‘civilized’ world.68
In Wang’s blog, he also mentioned several other Chinese bloggers who endorsed
his unhappy feelings, for example, Issac Mao and Yining, who also had experiences
with Western media interviews. Yining said:
Rabiya, BBC, and all the big media:

Do NOT set the interviewees up, do NOT use the interviewees, do NOT manip-
ulate them by cornering them and directing them to the opinions you yourself
want to present, so to fit into your own political agenda. So if that’s what you
are doing, sorry, there is no way I can cooperate. Tonight, it’s not about censor-
ship, but fair and professional reporting. Censorship is another game, we will
play it another day.69
Wang also quoted the organizer of Chinese Bloggers Conference, Issac Mao’s ex-
pression of his experience with the BBC:
The reporter who called me asked whether I can speak on the Live program for
BBC this evening London time. She was preparing the issue to be broadcast
tonight at 6:45 AM London time. The topic will be the China Blogger Con-
ference. I am pretty sure the topic will be around censorship again. I think the
time is just too early for me. It is so easy to convert Greenwich Mean Time
to Shanghai time, since one is GMT +0 and Shanghai is GMT +8. So I said I
prefer to have a better sleep other than wake up at 4:00 AM in the morning. The
other reason is, just as the previous interview, I am not 100% comfortable when
I am approached with a pre-defined conclusion and my role is just to provide
evidence to support the idea. That is neither interesting nor meaningful.70
Apart from Wang, an anonymous Chinese blogger also posted an article on Chi-
natopblog:
No surprise, BBC asked {about} their eternal theme-censorship in China. ...

{the} BBC interviewed hundreds of people about this topic in their program,
Yining was one of them. However, Yining is a wise man, he avoided the trap.71
But these fragmentary expressions did not get attention from the Western media
until the ‘Great Chinese Censorship Hoax’ happened in March 2006.
68
Wang, Jianshuo. ‘BBC’s Interview’. Wangjianshuo’s Blog, 7 November 2005. Available at:
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20051107 bbcs interview.htm. (Accessed 26.04.2006).
69
Ibid.
70
Ibid.
71
See Anonymous. 10 August 2005. Available at: http://chinatopblog.com/?p=6. (Accessed 23.04.
2008).
Year 2006: the Second Wave
On 8 March 2006, Chinese-language blogs Massage Milk and Milk Pig both an-
nounced on their blog that, ‘Due to unavoidable reasons with which everyone is fa-
miliar, this blog is temporarily closed’.72 Bloggers and journalists in the West spread
the message that it was another crackdown by the Chinese government.73 For exam-
ple, the BBC news website stated that this act was a government crackdown.74 The
French free-press group Reporters Sans Frontieres also condemned the shutdowns of
the blogs.75 But it turned out to be a hoax. Both those two blogs were back up and
running after a day. Wang Xiaofeng, the author of the blog Massage Milk, expressed
his intention of shutting down his blog in an interview: ‘to make a point about free-
dom of speech - just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing’.76 Wang Xiaofeng
told Interfax:
I just wanted to make fun of Western journalists? ... I don’t like it that Western
media take a distorted view of China, though China does have problems. I
thought that if I closed my blog, it would stir their imagination and then they
would begin blah blah. It really is as expected. So let they [Western journalists]
have an April Fool’s day in advance.77
Later on, not only the BBC corrected its original story which had suggested that
the Chinese government was involved in the shutdown of blogs, but also Reporters
Sans Frontieres modified its statement on 9 March by calling the shutdown a ‘joke’.78
The Western press was labelled ‘irresponsible’ by Wang Xiaofeng. He said that ‘the
hoax was designed to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always
the way you think’.79 What this hoax demonstrates is Chinese bloggers’ resentment
of Western critics of Chinese censorship issues. And this resentment was expanded
to cover Western negative coverage of China in 2008 and attracted the attention of
the world.
72
Goldkorn, Jeremy. ‘Blocking Blogs: The Cowardice of
China’s Net Nanny’. Danwei, 8 March 2006. Available at:
http://www.danwei.org/media and advertising/blocking blogs the cowardice o.php. (Accessed

21.07.2008).
73
Fowler, Geoffrey A. and Qin, Juying. ‘Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax’. Wall Street Journal, no. 03
(2006): B3.
74
Usher, Sebastian. ‘China Shuts Down Outspoken Blog’. BBC News, 8 March 2008. Available at;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4787302.stm. (Accessed 28.10.2008).
75
Fowler and Qin, ‘Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax’, B3.
76
Ibid.
77
Mackinnon, Rebecca. ‘The Great Chinese Censorship Hoax’. Rconversation, 2006. Available at:
http://Rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2006/03/the great chine. (Accessed 26.02.2009).
78
Fowler and Qin, ‘Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax’, E.
79
Ibid.
Year 2008: the Third Wave
The third wave of the Chinese nationalism wave is highlighted by the Olympic torch
relay event. High emotions were expressed in the anti-CNN forum after CNN’s cov-
erage on Tibet, and other Western coverage on Olympic torch relay in 2008. These
angry sentiments were inflamed by the CNN news commentator Jack Cafferty, who
described Chinese products as ‘junk’ and Chinese people as ‘goons’ and ‘thugs’ on
CNN’s political programme, The Situation Room, on 9 April:
We continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned
pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a
dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we’re buying from Wal-Mart. So I think
our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they’re basically the
same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.80
After Cafferty’s comments, about 6000 Chinese Americans and oversea Chinese
students gathered outside CNN’s studios in Los Angeles protesting about his com-
ments, demanding CNN apologize to the Chinese people, and calling for Cafferty’s
dismissal.
Together with the inflammatory comments by Cafferty, a controversial photo

claimed by Chinese netizens’ that CNN.com had manipulated the photo of Tibetan
rioters led to a website called ‘anti-CNN’ established by one Chinese blogger. The
website states, ‘We are not against the Western media, but against the lies and fab-
ricated stories in the media. We are not against the Western people, but against the
prejudice from the Western society’.81 The website claims that the Western me-
dia’s ‘misidentifications are intentional, part of an agenda on the part of the Western
media’.82 As Kennedy from Global Voices translates:
For a long time now, certain western media best represented by CNN and BBC,
in the name of press freedom have been unscrupulously slandering and defam-
ing developing nations. In order to achieve their unspoken goal, they mislead
80
Mostrous, Alexi. ‘CNN Apologizes to China Over “Thugs and Goons” Comment by Jack Cafferty’.
Times Online, 16 April 2008. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cnn-apologises-to-
china-over-thugs-and-goons-comment-by-jack-cafferty-gb95xn6v068. (Accessed 23.04.2008).
81
Mackinnon, Rebecca. ‘Anti-CNN and the Tibet Information War’. Rconversation, 2008. Avail-
able at: http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/03/anti-cnn-the-me.html. (Accessed
25.02.2009).
82
Zuckerman, Ethan. ‘Bridgeblogging Chinese Anger over Perceived Me-
dia Bias’. Ethan Zuckerman Blog, 25 March 2008. Available at:
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/25/bridgeblogging-chinese-anger-over-perceived-
media-bias/. (Accessed 23.07.2009).
and they ensnare, switching black for white, confusing right and wrong, fabri-
cating...willing to go to any length.83
Year 2012: the Fourth Wave
China’s Ye Shiwen won gold in the women’s 400-meter individual medley at the
2012 London Olympics, breaking the world record by a second. She swam her final
50-meter freestyle in 28.93 seconds, which was faster than the American winner of
the men’s event Ryan Lochte’s final 50 meters (29.1 seconds). This prompted John
Leonard, an American who is the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches
Association, to label Ye’s gold-medal performance ‘suspicious’ in an interview with
the Guardian.
Western media questioned Ye’s performance. Rick Morrissey, for example, from
Chicago Sun-time wrote: ‘For those who believe a person is innocent until proven
guilty, good for you. But for we skeptics, the people who have seen athletes try
to beat the system over and over again, it’s impossible to look at Ye’s performance
Monday and not suspect that something is very, very wrong’.84 BBC’s sport com-
mentator Clair Bauldwin even expressed her concern to the whole world at the scene.
The allegation set off a furious response in China, where the Olympics are closely
followed. China took the most gold medals at the Beijing Games in 2008, a point
of national pride and a sign of the country’s resurgent national strength. The head
of China’s Olympic swimming team rejected any suggestion that Ye may have used
performance-enhancing drugs.
On 30 July, the alleged BBC’s biased suspicion was first criticised by Chinese
netizens on Sina Weibo, and gathering attention from netizens. By 31 July, it was
reposted for more than 20,000 times on Sina Weibo, and on the next day, Chinese
state media broadcast the story and questioned the Western media bias regarding
suspicion of Ye Shiwen doping.
On 6 August, a prestigious academic journal Nature apologized to the Chinese

swimmer. Ye Shiwen for carrying a controversial article on its website that ‘gave the
impression that we were supporting accusations against her’ regarding the implica-
tion of doping.
83
Original texts posted on http://www.anti-cnn.com/index2.html in Chinese. Translation by John
Kennedy on Global Voices Online, 24 March 2008.
84
Morrissey, Rick. ‘China’s Ye Shiwen Raises Doping Suspicion with “Impossible” Win’. Chicago
Sun-Times, 2012. Available at: https://chicago.suntimes.com/storymap goprace2/. (Accessed
06.10.2012).
Year 2016: the Fifth Wave

The fifth nationalistic wave has been highlighted in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Australian TV station Channel Seven outraged members of the Chinese community
in Sydney by broadcasting a photo of the Chilean flag instead of the Chinese flag
during a segment which predicted the top five medallists at the 2016 Rio Games.
The 2016 Rio Olympics didn’t just mark the ascendance of major Chinese athletes
like swimmer and internet darling Fu Yuanhui - it also demonstrated how Chinese
nationalism can affect the global online dialogue.85 During the Games, Australian
gold medalist swimmer Mack Horton called Chinese competitor Sun Yang a ‘drug
cheat’86 ; in response, Chinese netizens flooded Horton’s accounts on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram - all of which are blocked in China and can only be accessed
with censorship circumvention tools - to demand an apology.
But members of this latest group jumping over China’s so-called great firewall of
censorship don’t necessarily fit the well-worn trope of the young, angry male internet
troll. On what seems to be Horton’s personal account on Chinese social media site
Weibo, for example, Chinese users left over 243,000 recent comments under a 2015
post, most calling Horton a ‘loser’. A Weibo analytics tool developed by prestigious
Peking University shows 83 per cent of these users as female. Some were likely part
of an increasingly high-profile, active, and young female-dominated online group
commonly called the ‘Little Pink’.87
Conclusion
Anderson’s much quoted concept of ‘imagined communities’88 –a nation is socially

constructed and perceived by the people who see themselves as part of it, in light
of the change of foreign policy from Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Low Profile’ to Xi’s ‘Chi-
nese Dream’, as the evidence above makes clear, the focus of Chinese nationalism
has turned from the economy to soft power projection and international power status.
Sport has proved to be an ideal ‘medicine’ with which to rejuvenate Chinese ethnic-
ity, unite the Chinese people, enhance national pride and further a positive image of
China. Modern media advances have played an important part in this progression.
85
Ruan, Lotus. ‘The New Face of Chinese Nationalism’. Foreign Policy, 25 August 2016. Available
at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/25/the-new-face-of-chinese-nationalism/. (Accessed 28.08.
2016).
86
Baldwin, Alan. ‘Swimming: Australia Says No Apology to China in Doping Row’. Reuters, 9 Au-
gust 2016. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-rio-swimming-china-australia-
idUSKCN10K1O5. (Accessed 03.05.2018).
87
Ruan, ‘The New Face of Chinese Nationalism’.
88
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
London and New York: Verso, 1983.
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CHINA

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Writings. (Lausanne, Switzerland: International Olympic Committee, 2000): 240–241.

(or sometimes to show disapproval of others) as is true, of course, of sport generally.5

It is stated by Hoberman that ‘sporting nationalism is not a single generic phe-

Chinese Nationalism and Chinese Modern Sport

The Modern Era: Chinese Nationalism

National peril resulted in a great nationalist question confronting Chinese social

Ascribing China’s century-long dark age as a consequence of both the collapse of

The Introduction of Modern Sport

school system they established in the country.15

Furthermore, as a result of the traumatisation of Chinese society by the succession

The Political Task of Chinese (Elite) Sport

representative of the Chinese people.25 In addition, the ideological conflict between

The Construction of a National Hero in the pre-2008 Era

In accordance with the nationalist agenda in Chinese sport, additional ideological

Peng clearly interprets the significance of Chinese athletes’ ‘outstanding perfor-

动员视角下里约奥运会报道叙事框架分析]’. Journal News Research [新闻研究导刊] 8, no. 12

Emphasising the significance of victories on the international stage also influences

This ritual is duplicated by regional sport administration departments to honour

Outstanding performances of Chinese Olympic heroes are recognised as ‘irre-

Socialist ideological trappings are thus a crucial element on accounts of Chinese

Two of the most typically socialist characteristics in Chinese discourse concerning

By portraying elite athletes as ‘intangible resource’ and contributors who ‘repay

The further reinforcement and improvement of the ideological and political

近平亲切看望索契冬奥会中国体育代表团]’. Xinhua News, 7 February 2014. Available at:

The excellent performance of each team has been recognised as an outcome of

Furthermore, elite athletes’ overly displayed ideological qualities particularly

Consistency and Changes in the Construction of Chinese Sport Heroes

Since China’s ‘opening-up and reform’, entertainment increasingly features in the

Liu Xiang: an Individual Tragic Hero

In a TV programme broadcast on the day of Liu Xiang’s withdrawal from the

The Chinese Women’s Volleyball Team: Heroes with a Modern Spirit

It is also worth noting the presentation of female athletes in Chinese media.

The capacity to simultaneously maintain the original ideological emphasis while

‘Never give up in adversity’, ‘one could be destroyed but never defeated’,

In the great historical process of comprehensively deepening reform, we should

It was advocated recently by the then-President of China, Hu Jintao, at the Awards

In other words, sport is to be associated with the development of a country, more

Nonetheless, outstanding performances of Chinese athletes are continuously

It is important to recognise, as previously argued, that the mass media, particu-

previous instrumentalisation of elite athletes for political purpose, could be argued

Kissinger, Henry. On China. The Penguin Group, 2012.

Sport is represented, of course, dramatically in the modern media in a variety

Introduction: Cartoon, Sport, and Nationalism: A Political Perspective

The cartoon is an effective instrument of political and social commentary world-

Sport, as Mangan has noted, is ‘played globally, organised globally, commer-

Sports nationalism is a ‘complex social phenomena created by ties between a na-

no. 32 (1994): 14-15.

... is not a single generic phenomenon; on the contrary, it is a complicated socio-

Images of the Chinese Athlete: Political ‘Projectile’ in Media Narratives

Sport Heroes: Cartoon Portrayals and Nationalistic Iconography

Available at: http://sports.ifeng.com/a/20160707/49310272 0.shtml. (Accessed 12.11.2017).

Depiction of National Symbols

Projecting Competitive and Friendly Relationships among Athletes

Given the competitiveness in sport, antagonism among athletes is frequent. Caustic

There is an alternative cartoon image. It illustrates friendship and harmony among