The Butterfly Effect and the Making of 'Ping-Pong Diplomacy'

Hong, Zhaohui; Yi, Sun

doi:10.1080/713675951

Cited by 24 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Likewise the impromptu truce in the Great War during Christmas 1914 and the various soccer matches played between British and German soldiers in and around no-man's-land, is used to exemplify the capacity of sport to divert, albeit temporarily, hostile communities (Foreman, 1993): for both of these cases it is sport instead of the shooting. More recent events that are often cited positively are political overtures between nations in conflict such as 'ping pong diplomacy' between the USA and China in the early 1970s, or 'cricket diplomacy' between India and Pakistan in the 2000s -although the highly complex, contingent and extremely fragile nature of these processes are rarely stressed (Croft, 2005;Dutt, 1974;Hong and Sun, 2000).…”

Section: Sport: Peace Maker or Warmonger?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical left-realism and sport interventions in divided societies

Sugden

2010

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

118

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What, if any, is the value of sport to processes of peace and reconciliation? After introducing the largely rhetorical arguments for and against the value of using sport as a vehicle to promote peace building in divided societies, this article makes a more detailed and forensic examination of the evidence based on: the role played by sport in South Africa before and after apartheid; and second, drawing upon the author’s own experiences garnered over more than two decades of conducting research and leading sport-based intervention initiatives in Northern Ireland and Israel. The article argues that sport is intrinsically value neutral and under carefully managed circumstances it can make a positive if modest contribution to peace building. The mobilization of an engaged sociological imagination in the context of a broader human rights agenda is central to this contribution. Drawing upon notions of pragmatism, left realism and praxis, the article concludes by presenting a ‘ripple effect’ model that illustrates the circumstances under which sport can make a difference in the promotion of social justice and human rights in deeply divided societies

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Section: Sport: Peace Maker or Warmonger?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical left-realism and sport interventions in divided societies

Sugden

2010

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

118

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“…Others believe the opposite and that it was the Chinese, prodded from the wings by Chairman Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Chou En-lai, who viewed this eventuality as something that could be exploited for their own political ends. 11 On seeing the smiling photograph of Zhuang Zedong and Glen Cowen, Mao is reported to have referred to his namesake as 'a good diplomat' and after some deliberation had ordered that the US team should be invited to China. Whichever side made the first move, what is certain is that on 14 April, not much more that a week after Cowan set foot on the Chinese bus, he made the short walk across a bridge from Hong Kong to mainland China, together with eight teammates, two spouses, four officials and ten journalists.…”

Section: Ping Pong Diplomacymentioning

confidence: 99%

The USA and Sporting Diplomacy: Comparing and Contrasting the Cases of Table Tennis with China and Baseball with Cuba in the 1970s

Carter

Sugden

2012

International Relations

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When Beijing hosted the Olympic Games in 2008 we were reminded that almost four decades earlier the People's Republic of China's road back to international recognition and acceptance had begun with a chance sporting encounter between two members of the US and Chinese table tennis teams in Japan in 1971. It is less well known that not long after this successful 'ping pong' diplomatic episode, attempts were made by various parties to use baseball in a similar way to try and repair international ties between Cuba and the United States. In this article the circumstances through which the former succeeded whereas the latter failed miserably are subject to detailed examination. Drawing upon existing literature and unclassified material gleaned from the National Security Archive (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Archive we argue that for a number of historically specific reasons, and because of the different balances of interest and asymmetric power relations, 'ping pong' diplomacy was able to help broker rapprochement between the United States and China, whereas 'baseball diplomacy' could do little or nothing to stimulate diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana.

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“…Sport alone is almost never sufficient to advance state interests or create divisions between states. In contrast, sport usually serves as a facilitating mechanism in international relations that operates secondary to larger diplomatic initiatives and more consequential foreign and domestic policy considerations (Hong and Sun 2000, Cha 2009a, 2009b, Szymanski 2011. In order to accurately identify the policy choices and limitations available to states during each of the boycott movements under consideration, one must first appreciate the respective temporal contexts in which they occurred (Costigliola and Paterson 2004, Iriye 2004, Hook 2005.…”

Section: Please Scroll Down For Articlementioning

confidence: 94%