Olympian Politics in Beijing: Games but not Just Games

This article discusses how the Olympics serve as a meaningfully political act at least as much as a sporting event, with China's ambitions to dominate the 2008 games something of a political analogy for the logic of its greater ambitions in Asia and the world. Seeing the spectacle as politics by other means, this analysis takes up the example of how the 2008 Beijing games are the latest leg of an old project that has seen muscular Christian motivations in China morph into notions of 'face' that articulate with China's elevated geopolitical position in the world today. Its 'higher weight-class' position is here analysed as a two-front communicative ritual operation aimed both inwardly at the Chinese populace, and outwardly at an international audience of global neighbour-states.