The Asian Games Modern Metaphor for the Middle Kingdom" Reborn" ─ Political Statement, Cultural Assertion, Social Symbol

The premise of The Asian Games: Modern Metaphor for ‘The Middle Kingdom’ Reborn - Political Statement, Cultural Assertion, Social Symbol is emphatic. The Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games was a metaphor for hegemony and renaissance. China crushed the other Asian nations with the massive weight of its Gold Medal ‘haul’ and demonstrated regional self-confidence regained. The huge accumulation of gold medals emphasized that once again China stood apart, and above, other nations of Asia. China's reaction and the reactions of the other Asian nations are explored in The Asian Games. There is another premise in the publication that the ‘Chinese’ Asian Games were a harbinger of a wider dominance to come: geopolitically, politically, militarily, economically and culturally. And there is a further issue raised by the Guangzhou Asian Games- the continuing determination of the Asian nations to mount a distinctive Games that is Asian and resistant to the cumbersome gigantism of the Modern Olympic Games. Asia now has the wealth to promote, present and project a global sports mega-event with an Asian identity and in an Asian idiom. This Collection is unique in focus, argument and evidence.

This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

J.A. Mangan, Emeritus Professor, University of Strathclyde; FRHS; FRAI; FRSA; RSL; D. Litt, is Founding Editor of the International Journal of the History of Sport and the series Sport in the Global Society, author of the globally acclaimed Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, The Games Ethic and imperialism and ‘Manufacturing' Masculinity: Making Imperial Manliness, Morality and Militarism and author or editor of some fifty publications on politics, culture, and sport.

Marcus P. Chu lectures Chinese politics and international relations in the Department of Political Science, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD from the University of Auckland in May 2012. His thesis reviews the central and local inter-relations in China’s bids for international events since the 1980s. He currently works on a project regarding the political preoccupations of East Asian countries at the London 2012 Olympics with Professor J.A. Mangan.

Dong Jinxia is a professor at Peking University. She obtained her Ph.D. from University of Strathclyde in 2001. She was also a visiting scholar in Yale University in 2009. Her research interests include Olympic culture, gender and sport, and sports sociology. She received the "International Max & Reet Howell Award" of NASSH in 2007.