Raising The National Profile
55
S oft P ower
Summer 2014 • H A R V A R D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E V I E W
and
At the 1964 Olympics, the first broadcast globally, Japan used the opportunity to showcase itself as a comeback
nation after the devastation of WWII, and to presage its
rise as an economic force in the global economy. In 2020,
Japan will again host the Summer Olympics, this time
sending a message of renewal after economic recession
and devastation by tsunami and nuclear meltdown. South
Korea’s hosting of the World Cup (jointly with Japan) in
2002 was an effort to announce its arrival as a serious globalized country. Even more so was China’s hosting of the
2008 Olympics when Beijing wanted to change its national
image from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest stadium.
The narrative of the opening evening’s ceremonies was a
carefully constructed set of soft power images of Chinese
civilization, emphasizing its ancient cultural achievements
and neatly side-stepping its Maoist past.
A potential problem with hosting a mega sports event
in today’s globalized media environment is that the host
country cannot control the message received. One recent
example clearly elucidates this: Russia hosted the winter
Olympics this year and has won the right to host the World
Cup in 2018. Putin tried to turn the winter games into a
triumph for Russian soft power. More than US$50 billion
was spent by the Russian government and Russian compa-
nies on preparing and hosting the games. Intense security
measures prevented a terrorist incident, but initial press
coverage focused on the mixed quality of Russian hotels,
the round-up and killing of Sochi’s stray dogs, and the
exorbitant costs. The opening night’s cultural and musical
performance, not unlike that in Beijing, presented the story
of Russian civilization, not Soviet communism (except
for a few images of tractors and steel mills), focusing on
famous Russian composers and authors. It seemed that
Putin had pulled off a soft power success, only to sully it
almost immediately with his use of hard power in Crimea
and Ukraine; deteriorating living conditions as well as human rights concerns were also similarly corrosive to the
ideal image that Putin had attempted to paint through its
hosting of the global event.
The world watched as Brazil prepared for this summer’s World Cup and then the Olympics in 2016. When
Brazil was awarded these events, the country’s President
Lula hailed the moment as the arrival of Brazil as a global
player. Press stories leading up to the World Cup focused
on the lack of readiness of many of the facilities, on the
sorry state of Brazil’s hotel and transportation infrastructure, and on the protests which broke out over the costs
of the sport facilities in contrast to the state of Brazilian
education or transportation. The New York Times reported that preparations for the Olympics are the furthest
behind schedule in modern Olympic history. Brazil might
well come to regret the global spot light that comes with
hosting these international sporting events.
Individual sports stars and the success of national
teams, moreover, can also raise a nation’s profile. The success of Japanese baseball players such as Hideo Nomo and
Ichiro Suzuki in the US has been important to improving
Japan’s international image. Two Japanese relievers, Koji
Uehara and Junichi Tazawa, played highly visible roles in
the Boston Red Sox’s winning the World Series in 2013.
In Los Angeles, a cohort of 10,000 Korean Americans
attend Dodger stadium whenever South Korean pitcher
Hyun-Jin Ryu takes the mound, and millions more watch
as the games are televised live in his home country. The
Dodger’s first great Mexican pitcher Fernando Valenzuela
lifted Mexican pride as “Fernandomania” took hold on
both sides of the border.
Asian women athletes such as South Korean golf star
So Yeon Ryu, or Shansahn Feng, the first woman from
China to win an LPGA tournament, and her rival Taiwan
star Yani Tseng, as well as the Japanese women’s national
soccer team have altered the image of Asian women. Chinese teenage golfer Guan Tianlang played at the Masters,
and exemplifies the change in Chinese sports development
from a state run system to the private country clubs of the
rising middle class. International tennis stars Serena and
Venus Williams are a loud and clear global message of the
rise of female athletes in the United States. The national
pride and media attention that sports figures receive allow
such athletes to become prominent spokespeople for public
issues, and of course, to endorse commercial products for
S ports , D iplomacy
Mao, and the subsequent signing of the Shanghai Accord which led to formal normalization under President
Carter. Sports diplomacy worked well in the context of
serious diplomacy by both governments’ efforts towards
normalization of relations.
Subsequent attempts to play the sports card at the
highest levels of diplomacy have been less effective. During the Clinton administration, the President tried baseball diplomacy with Cuba, approving a 1999 trip by the
Baltimore Orioles to play in Havana. Clinton also used
wrestling diplomacy with Iran, sending the US team to
compete in Tehran. Unfortunately, differences between
the two countries and internal politics were not conducive
to rapprochement through sports diplomacy.
Similar attempts at sports diplomacy have also proved
elusive to other nations. In 2008, Turkey’s president,
Abdullah Gul, visited Armenia to attend the TurkeyArmenia qualifying soccer match in Yerevan. It was the
first time that a modern Turkish leader had visited Armenia, and it seemed to signal a new willingness from both
countries to resolve differences and normalize relations.
International press coverage hailed it as “football diplomacy,” but the issues of the Armenian “genocide” and
Nagorno-Karabakh proved too difficult, and the opening
was not followed with diplomatic success. Such examples
show that replicating the success of US-Chinese ping-pong
diplomacy seems unlikely and, unfortunately, a rarity in
international relations. Far more common are the ways in
which the globalization of s