Search Results

A decade before official 'ping pong diplomacy', leaders in the People's Republic of China (PRC) used sports delegation visits to cultivate diplomatic relations with recently decolonized nations. In the early 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split, the rise of various Afro-Asian movements, and decolonization in Africa led to intense Sino-Soviet competition for socialist influence in the Third World. Officially presented to the Chinese public as “friendly” sports exchanges, PRC leaders sought to expand their influence and prove that Chinese socialism under Mao as an alternative (and superior) model to that of the Soviet Union. The chapter, based primarily on declassified official reports from Chinese archives, begins with the first major PRC sports delegation sent to Africa in 1962, a contingent of well-known ping pong athletes. The visit helped Chinese leaders gather knowledge on new allies, officially express shared historical and political solidarities against colonialism and imperialism, and, through sport, demonstrate China's achievements through socialism. These visits sought to build diplomatic ties while promoting and shoring up support - foreign as well as domestic - for a Chinese brand of socialism that professed an alternative, non-Soviet path to socialist modernity.

This chapter examines the inter-relationship of sport and diplomacy with specific reference to the 1960 Winter Olympic Games (held in Squaw Valley, California). More specifically, it evaluates State Department involvement in the ongoing issue of the recognition of the “Two China’s” during the Cold War, with specific reference to international sport. Despite long-standing official non-involvement in international sporting matters, hosting the 1960 Games focussed US diplomatic attention on the opportunities and problems presented by the Olympics within the wider Cold War. Crucially, the State Department extended considerable behind-the-scenes efforts both before and during the Squaw Valley Games in an attempt ensure Nationalist Chinese participation. Overall, this chapter will demonstrate that despite claims of non-involvement, the State Department specifically utilised international sport – and particularly the Olympics – as a tool of diplomacy during the Cold War. This was drawn into particularly sharp focus when the Games were being hosted on American soil, as they were in Squaw Valley in 1960.