Re-Entering the Sporting World: China's Sponsorship of the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) |
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| Authors: | Russell Field |
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| Institution: | 1. Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canadarussell.field@umanitoba.ca |
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| Abstract: | Prior to the 2008 Olympics, China's most sustained support of an international multi-sport event came in 1963 when it contributed significantly to the financing of and then dominated the medals table at the inaugural Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), held in Jakarta. GANEFO is a singular moment through which to understand politics and sport in the 1960s. This article is a consideration of China's role in GANEFO, and the West's response to China's involvement. It explores the ways in which China used the event to navigate issues of international and regional geopolitics, and considers the diplomatic and sporting corridors within which GANEFO resonated. GANEFO was a platform through which geopolitical tensions were revealed, and China engaged in propaganda campaigns directed at the West and positioned itself to win allies among the decolonising countries of Asia and Africa – astride the artificial boundary that separated the Second and Third Worlds. China's interest in and the West's response to GANEFO reflected the ways in which anti-communist Cold War politics were conflated with racialised, post-colonial discourses and tension between Second World powers. |
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| Keywords: | GANEFO China Indonesia Olympics geopolitics |
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