Asian Games a chance for China to break the ice with sports diplomacy
- Can Beijing mend fences with its neighbours in Northeast Asia as host of the region’s sporting spectacular?
- Observers said there will be plenty of opportunities but warned there are risks and challenges to mixing sport and politics
Major sporting events offer a chance to rebuild trust and bridge differences, but observers warned the task of rebuilding relations through the 19th Asiad – delayed for a year by the Covid-19 pandemic – may prove particularly daunting for Beijing.
Ties with China’s Northeast Asian neighbours are at a low point, amid the intensifying US-China feud, and there are also risks and challenges in mixing sport with politics, despite past successes, they said.
Ping-pong diplomacy famously helped to break the ice between China and the US in 1971 and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing is still regarded as China’s coming out party to the world.
More recently, in 2018 athletes from North and South Korea marched together under a unified flag, first at the Asian Games in Indonesia and then again at the Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the Games last Saturday in front of 80,000 spectators at Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium in Zhejiang province, with more than a dozen foreign guests in attendance.
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