China's Evolving Sports Diplomacy

Introduction

In 2021, the total value of the Chinese sports industry topped 3 trillion yuan (436 billion USD) for the first time, an indicator of rapid growth driven by the rise of the middle class and an increased focus on recreation.¹ As the sports sector has ballooned in size, it has also become a powerful avenue of Chinese influence over public opinion. This memo charts the evolution of Chinese foreign policy in the sports realm from the 1970s to the present day. While China has continued to use sports as a tool to improve its global image, its policy has shifted from good-faith diplomacy to become more assertive and antagonistic. By weaponizing its commercial might, China has demonstrated its leverage over multinational bodies and its power to shape political discourse. To demonstrate this trend, this memo concludes with a survey of recent challenges for international sporting organizations in the Chinese market.

History

Since the founding of modern China, sports have assumed an unavoidably political role in its foreign policy discourse. The State Physical Culture and Sports Commission, created in 1952 to foster competitive success for Chinese athletes, facilitated regular training and athlete exchanges with the Soviet Union, Poland, and North Korea, with an emphasis on building stronger ties between China and ideologically-aligned states.² This narrow focus expanded over time. In April 1971, Zhou Enlai summoned the American national ping-pong team to a Beijing meeting, “committing China publicly to the course heretofore confined to the most secret diplomatic channels”.³ This meeting, a manifestation of so-called “ping-pong diplomacy” opened the door for more meetings between the United States and China and paved the way for Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to China later in 1971. Importantly, however, the focus of ping-pong diplomacy was inward-facing: Chen Jian argues that the primary purpose of the April meeting was to “mobilize and gain the Chinese people’s support for establishing a new relationship with the United States”.⁴ From this period until the late-aughts, Chinese foreign policy was also largely cooperative with regard to sports. For instance, when Chinese leaders endorsed peaceful integration with Taiwan over forceful invasion in the early 1990s, one key pillar of their approach was cultural exchange through sports.⁵ This myopia would soon fade, however, as China’s leaders realized that the international nature of sporting competition made it a unique tool for global power projection.

Nearly forty years later, in 2008, that realization was on full display in Beijing. Indeed, even the mere act of bidding for the Olympics asserted China’s presence on the international stage. The Taiwanese government vehemently opposed China’s bid, objecting to minor details such as the torch relay route in an attempt to obstruct the logistics of hosting.⁶ In this context, the Olympics asserted Chinese hegemony over Taiwan, especially since the International Olympic Committee represents a global consensus. 2008 also marked a turn in Western foreign policy, as protests of China’s human rights record bled into the Olympics. Demonstrators and Western media denounced China’s efforts to undermine Tibetan independence, and celebrities including Steven Spielberg withdrew their participation from the Olympics after learning of China’s failure to resolve political conflict in Sudan.⁷ China’s increasingly antagonistic relations in the sports world, both in terms of its own actions and the Western response, mirrored its foreign policy stance more broadly. Prior to Xi Jinping, China was content to play second fiddle to the West on the international stage, following their lead on issues such as climate change and nuclear weapons.⁸ However, Suisheng Zhao marks the Olympics as a “turning point from developmental diplomacy to big power diplomacy,” which he defines by the characteristic aggression and proactiveness of Xi’s tenure.⁹

Present Challenges

Precisely because of that assertiveness, China represents both a golden opportunity for revenue generation and a complex geopolitical puzzle for multinational sporting associations in the present day. On the one hand, China’s sports industry, bolstered by an ambitious National Fitness Plan, has blossomed into one the world’s largest.¹⁰ The growth of China’s middle class and an increased focus on recreation has driven an influx of foreign investment in the sector. On the other hand, sporting organizations are forced to navigate a complex web of geopolitical subtleties to avoid alienating human-rights conscious consumers in the West and nationalist consumers in China.

This symbiotic, yet asymmetrical relationship sheds light on the significance of the globalization of previously Western sports. For groups such as the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), National Basketball Association (NBA), and the English Premier League (EPL), Chinese revenue makes up such a large share of earnings that they are forced to yield to the government in times of conflict. In the case of the WTA, Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a senior Communist Party official, sparking a WTA boycott of China out of concern for her safety. That boycott has come to an end, however, with the WTA conceding that it had failed to produce concessions from Chinese authorities on the fate of Peng Shuai (Chan).¹¹

The NBA, meanwhile, came under fire from Chinese consumers after Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, posted a tweet supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019. While the NBA distanced itself from those comments, the consequences were severe: NBA games were removed from Chinese airwaves for one season, leading to an estimated $200 million drop in revenue.¹²

For the EPL, the controversy in question stemmed from Mesut Özil, who played for the club Arsenal. In 2019, Özil posted messages on social media condemning China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province, and as before, China retaliated swiftly.¹³ Chinese broadcasters banned Arsenal games temporarily, and Özil later left the club after they failed to stand by his comments.

A common thread throughout these cases is the nationalistic backlash to perceived attacks on Chinese human rights policies. This backlash exists at both the popular level, with self-imposed boycotts of teams and leagues who engage in criticism, and at the institutional level, with state-imposed bans of broadcasts. The latter reflects the power of media organizations, notably Tencent, have also increased their capacity to amplify negative press coverage about Western sports stars and enforce consequences for criticism.¹⁴

Although China engaged in cooperative sports diplomacy for much of the twentieth century, it has since pivoted to a more antagonistic and assertive approach. This tactic is most visible in its relationships with international sports organizations, which are often reliant on China for revenue. Looking forward, these organizations will continue to face difficult choices as China looks to exploit them as a tool of diplomatic influence.