The Potential of Sport as a Medium of Public Diplomacy and its Challenges
Tags: Diplomacy, International Relations, Politics, Sports, Public Diplomacy

(American tennis table player and Chinese tennis table player in 1971. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Who would have thought that a round rubber ball would end history of tension between two ideologically uncompromising countries? Regardless of how alien it may sounds, a rubber ball does capable of bonding diplomatic relations between countries. Sport is so powerful on unifying different layers of society to sit side by side on the stadium seats. Regardless of their differences on skin shade, whichever political spectrum they stand on, and whatever folklore they cherish, people were bonded through the euphoria of sport match. While the trumpets were blowing and the flags were lifted, people start to deposit their identity into pigeonhole and start wandering to the tip of delight. [1]

In many occurrences, countries either spontaneously or intentionally, has used sport to initiate stronger diplomatic relations. With the merge of sport and diplomacy in the last few centuries, it is safe to say that sport has become a conventional way to achieve the national interest of countries in the aspects of economy, politic, and sociocultural. Especially amidst the rise of public diplomacy as a common practice of states on achieving their interest. Thus, this writing attempted to examine the potential of sport as a medium of public diplomacy. Consequently, this phenomenon raises up several questions. Why is sport such an effective medium of bonding diplomatic ties? What are the challenges of sport diplomacy?

In terms of why sport becomes an effective medium of bonding diplomatic ties, there are by far three possible explanations. Firstly, the trend of public diplomacy, in which countries are focusing to influence the public attention through interaction within the framework of non-governmental entities. Public attention is one of the key prerequisites of enacting successful public diplomacy, state actors use the engaging nature of sport to reach their interest. In that sense, states either organically or artificially using the platform of sport as a way of driving the public attention that later translates into discourses within the public space. In short, where the public attention goes, it is a strategic place to gain soft power.

Back in 1971, World Table Tennis Championship was held in Nagoya, Japan amidst the tension of Cold War. Back then, United States and China are at the triumph of Cold War propaganda where the two countries stand on the opposing pole of political ideology. China under Mao Zedong bond a strong relation with Soviet Union under the banner of socialism, and it received United States hostility as the consequence. Trade embargos on several essential goods and sentiment between the two are the key features of diplomatic situation at the time. However, beneath the surface, both countries had an underlying communication regarding the relation between the two, but everything went into white noise as the risk of receiving backlash from Soviet restrain China from taking conspicuous action.

The initial intention of companionship could only come to manifestation after Zhuang Zedong, Chinese top tier ping-pong player, approached US player, Glenn Cowan with a warm handshake and hand him a gift at the exchange of peace signed T-shirt by Cowan. The gestures of both athletes captured the attention of the public. In the aftermath of the match, the medias from China and United States were massively promoting the historical moment as a breakthrough of diplomatic ties between the two giants. The year after, President Richard Nixon visited the Chinese mainland meeting Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, marked as the first president to ever entered the bamboo curtains. Such historic moment engraved in our memory as the “ping-pong diplomacy”. [2] Ping-pong diplomacy is an example of the power of sport competition on capturing the attention of the public attention, domestically and it also goes beyond state boundaries.

Secondly, sport is a neutral, universal, and apolitical ground. Sports are capable of uniting different layers of society because it is capable to break linguistic, racial, and political boundaries between people [3]. Sports are even capable to re-build a broken diplomatic tie between two countries [4]. The reason is simple, we watch sport match for the sake of entertainment and people are passionate about it. It is common to witness that two countries who might be politically and economically oppositional, compromise their value for sport match. North Korea and South Korea might be oppositional, but when it comes to sport, they would not hesitate to celebrate together. In the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic, athletes from both countries marched together in the opening ceremony. It might be just a symbolic gesture, but it is indeed an improvement [5]. Another example is the India and Pakistan conflict. The conflict between India and Pakistan raised as the consequences of arbitrary religious borderline drawn by British colonization that divide the two countries. The attempt of British colony practically led them to bloodbath. Occurrences of genocide, rape, and multiple riots are common tragedy between them. Then, just how the previous story went, the two countries magically united through cricket match. After long hiatus due to war in 1965–1971, the cricket match of 1978 was held as the ice breaker of their tension or simply a peace initiative. Cricket has continuously become their medium of diplomacy at the following events, namely amidst Kashmir conflict in 1990s and after the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight in 1999. The public experiences trauma of the amount of violence in the twentieth century, thus they are likely to engage in a soft approach through sports. From the two examples, we witness how sport serves as a neutral ground where countries merge with each other, even amidst a conflict.

Lastly, the rise of personalities. While people are enjoying the match, people tend to worship the sportsmen. The reason to this is because athletes are oftentimes representing the country, the whole country put their hope on these athlete’s shoulders to win the match. Athletes are oftentimes seen as the representative of their country’s public diplomacy as a symbol of goodwill. When an athlete exchange clothes with the foreign athlete, it is symbolically interpreted as an act of solidarity between both countries. Athletes are an ambassador that oftentimes projecting the culture and values of their representative countries [6]. In some cases, they even granted a formal assignment of public diplomacy. Namely Ken Griffey, a reputable basketball player whose even assigned as diplomatic ambassador by George W. Bush. Many athletes are also assigned by United Nation bodies as an ambassador of certain message. It is also common to find that sport competition serves as a platform to promote progressive values. Many athletes are standing to represent the youth, or even the value of woman empowerment, against racism, and even environmental advocacy [7].

Among the bright side of sport as a tool of diplomacy, it also causes several problems on the implementation. One of the challenges is the toxic competition between nations caused by the urges of flexing their power. Such power struggles unfortunately also translated in their way of perceiving sports as an object of power. The competitive nature of sport used by states to project their superiority against another country. One of the examples is the competition between United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War era. Where the Western countries boycotted the Eastern bloc Olympics and the Eastern bloc did the reverse. This example shows how sport diplomacy can also turns malformed [8].

The next challenge is the lack of academic studies on explaining the interplay of sport, politic and diplomacy. The enormous potential of sport as a tool of diplomacy has been obstructed by the lack of theoretical exploration. The existence of such explorations is important on minimizing the gap between the theory and practice of sport diplomacy by examining the controversies and challenges. As well as becoming the basis of further discourses regarding sport diplomacy [9].

The last challenge is the short-termism of sport diplomacy. Sport diplomacy is often theatrical and symbolic. It is too exaggerating to expect that sport can be a main room of bonding diplomatic relations. On the best scenario, the symbolistic maneuver on the field translates to further diplomatic ties, on the other hand, it remains on surface and theatrical level [10].

In conclusion, by examining past occurrences, sport has become one of the effective media of enacting public diplomacy due to its engaging nature as well as the neutrality of it. However, such tremendous potential of sport diplomacy requires further theoretical exploration to explain the phenomenon comprehensively. Such blacks and whites of sport diplomacy supposed to be evaluated further to prepare ourselves from encountering future merges of sport, politic, and diplomacy.

References

[1] Heekin-Canedy, Siobhan. 2019. “The Power of Sport as Public Diplomacy.” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. Diakses 12 Oktober 2020. http://www.fletcherforum.org/the-rostrum/2019/11/4/how-sports-diplomacy

[2] Andrews, Evan. 2016. “How Ping-Pong Diplomacy Thawed the Cold War.” History Stories. Diakses 12 Oktober 2020. https://www.history.com/news/ping-pong-diplomacy

[3] Triwibowo, Albert dan Jessica Marth. 2018. “Energy and Inspiration of Asia: Merging of Sport and Diplomacy.” The Jakarta Post. Diakses 12 Oktober 2020. https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2018/10/18/energy-and-inspiration-of-asia-merging-of-sports-and-diplomacy.html

[4] Come, Thierry and Michel Raspaud. 2018. “Sports diplomacy: A strategic challenge for Qatar.” Hermès, La Revue 81, no.2: 169–175. https://www.cairn.info/journal-hermes-la-revue-2018-2-page-169.htm

[5] Heekin-Canedy, “The Power of Sport as Public Diplomacy.”

[6] Cooper, Andrew F., 2018. “U.S. Public Diplomacy and Sports Stars: Mobilizing AfricanAmerican Athletes as Goodwill Ambassadors from the Cold War to an Uncertain Future.” Place Brand Public Dipl 15, 165–172. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-018-00114-2

[7] Özsarı, Arif, Fi̇şekçi̇oğlu, İ. Bülent , Çeti̇n, M. Çağrı , Temel, A. Sencer. 2018. Sport Diplomacy as Public Diplomacy Element . International Journal of Sport Culture and Science. International Journal of Sport Culture and Science 6, no.3, 339–349. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/intjscs/issue/45724/577196

[8] Keys, Barbara. 2012. The Early Cold War Olympics, 1952–1960: Political, Economic and Human Rights Dimensions. The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

[9] Murray, Stuart. 2012. “The Two Halves of Sport-Diplomacy.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 23, no.3, 576–592. https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2012.706544

[10] Berridge, G.R. 2002. Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. London: Springer