Do the scale and scope of the event matter? The Asian Games and the relations between North and South Korea

Abstract

This paper examines the political dimension of the Asian Games. More specifically, it focuses on the implications that hosting the Asian Games in South Korea had for its relationship with North Korea. The four editions of the Asian Games that this study looks at show that the fluctuated relations between North and South Korea tends to be mirrored through the sporting events. In that sense, it can be argued that the international sporting competitions function as a barometer to measure the relations between the two Koreas. However, this study also notes that the political value of sport must not be overestimated. More often than not it is wider political circumstances that determine the nature of the inter-Korean sporting relations. In this respect, sport is more likely to work as a dependent variable on broader political structure. Finally, while the Asian Games is a relatively smaller scale event in comparison with global sports mega event such as the Olympic Games, it by no means indicates that this continental competition is an event of less political significance. Rather than scale and scope, it is the context within which a particular sporting event is staged that assigns political meaning to the competition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Black identifies the three different types of sporting events according to the scale and scope of the event. The first-order games are the events that attract meaningfully significant global attention. The second-order games refer to the events that are of international scope, but attract limited media and popular interest. The third-order games mean regional or continental level sport competitions. According to this typology, the Asian Games is the third order event.

2. The Korean War broke out in 1950 and ended in 1953 without a peace treaty, but with the armistice agreement. In this sense, the two Koreas are still technically at war. This inter-Korean warfare results in a permanent division of the Korean Peninsula.

3. See Houlihan for a more comprehensive discussion on this topic.

4. In fact, the first inter-Korean sporting talk took place in 1963. However, it was largely prepared and mediated by the International Olympic Committee to resolve the issue around the first entrance of North Korea to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In that sense, it is difficult to see that this first meeting genuinely reflected the two Korean Governments’ willingness to meet and discuss the possibility of sporting union with the aim of facilitating the reconciliation between the two Korean states. For more discussion on this volume, see Bridges (2007).

5. Of course North Korean athletes visited South Korea in the early 1990s to participate in inter-Korean friendly matches. Yet, strictly speaking theses occasions were not international competition, but were part of sporting exchange programme. Notably, no national symbols were used in these competitions in order to erase any elements representing a statehood of each Korea. Instead, the two sides used a unified Korean flag that the two Koreas agreed to adopt in preparation for the Beijing Asian Games in 1990.

6. Until 2007, the two Koreas actively discussed the possibility for sending a unified Korean team to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. When the new president was in power in the early 2008, the inter-Korean sporting talks halted and no sporting union or exchanges between North and South Koreas were made at the Olympic Games in the Chinese capital (Lee 2010).