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Playing Games: The Two Koreas and the Beijing Olympics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Brian Bridges
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Abstract

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For divided nations such as the two Koreas, which by their very rationales are involved in a highly-charged competition for legitimacy with their other ‘part-nation’, the Olympics have been a particularly potent arena for political posturing. This article examines the troubled history of the two Koreas' endeavours to out-do each other in the Olympic movement, the prospects of a joint Korean team for the Beijing Olympics being realised, and the potential Chinese role in the run-up to those Olympics, which mean so much to China.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , March 2008 , e19
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

References

Notes

[1] Ha Nam-Gil and J.A. Mangan, ‘Ideology, Politics, Power: Korean Sport - Transformation, 1945-92‘, in J.A.Mangan and Fan Hong, eds, Sport in Asian Society: Past and Present, (London: Frank Cass, 2003), p.214.

[2] Christopher Hill, Olympic Politics. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992). In the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics, an all-German team competed, composed of athletes from both West and East Germany. Wallace Irwin, Politics of International Sport: Games of Power,(New York: Foreign policy Association, 1988), p. 38.

[3] Full details are in Brian Bridges, ‘Reluctant Mediator: Hong Kong, the Two Koreas and the Tokyo Olympics’, International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol.24, No.3, March 2007, pp. 375-391.

[4] Richard Pound, Five Rings Over Korea (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1994). See also Park Seh-jik, The Seoul Olympics: The Inside Story (London: Bellew Publishing, 1991).

[5] Gabriel Jonsson, Towards Korean Reconciliation: Socio-Cultural Exchanges and Cooperation. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 119-120. Byun Jin-Heung has argued that effectively there was an eight-year break in inter-Korean sports exchanges in the 1990s. ‘Inter-Korean Exchanges and Peace on the Korean Peninsula’, in Peace on the Korean Peninsula through Sports Exchange. (Seoul: Sports Institute for National Unification, 2003), pp.131-132.

[6] Choi D., ‘Building Bridges: The Significance of Inter-Korean Sports and Cultural Exchange’, East Asian Review, Winter 2002, p.112

[7] Song Young-Dae, ‘The Political Situation on the Korean peninsula and the 2010 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games’, in Peace on the Korean Peninsula through Sports Exchange. (Seoul: Sports Institute for National Unification, 2003), p.30.

[8] The President of the North Korean NOC sent a letter to Rogge in December 2005 stating that a Pyeonchang Olympics would enhance reconciliation and cooperation between the two Koreas. Korea Times, 22 December 2006. In July 2007 Pyeonchang lost the decision to Sochi, Russia.

[9] South China Morning Post, 1 November 2005.

[10] China Daily, 27 February 2004.

[11] Byun, ‘Inter-Korean Exchanges’, p. 133.

[12] Olympic Studies Centre Archives, Lausanne, Switzerland: Avery Brundage Collection, microfilm of papers from Box 138.