East Asian quest for new national identity: Olympic Games in Japan, South Korea, and China

Sports has often been a focal point for symbols and narratives, acting as a common thread among citizens that can dynamically impact the creation and content of national identity, national history and narratives. This paper discusses and compares the national identity and narrative aspects of the Olympics Games hosted by Japan in 1964, South Korea in 1988 and China in 2008. In each of these instances the host country had recently experienced significant trauma and/or transformation: Japan arising from the defeat of World War II as a new democratic peaceful state, South Korea emerging from authoritarian rule to take its place as a new industrial democratic state and China as a rejuvenated peaceful world power. It argues that in each of these Olympic Games, state policymakers used the games as an opportunity to re-articulate their national identity and history. Japanese and Korean policymakers and Olympic Committee sought to identify with development democratic nations while the Chinese government narratives and symbols suggested that China would follow its own developmental path that would not necessarily resonate with the Western expectations or lead to liberal democracy and a full market economy.