IT’S NOT JUST SPORT: TAIWAN AND THE 2008 BEIJING OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY

摘要

This paper employs an approach drawn from the strategic relations approach in an empirical evaluation of the behavior of the participators in the governance of the political sporting system within/beyond the ‘Chinese Community’. The paper highlights the significance of political intentions as a key characteristic of the strategic environment which provides the two governments’ interests space to pursue ‘political actions’, and evaluates the responses of the participators in the governance system. Three major conclusions are as follows: first, this case illustrates how local Chinese-Taiwanese sports political nexus being implicated within a global sports system, as a strategic context, which provides a source of influence and power, constrains and/or facilitates the choices available to the participators; second, it points to evidence that the political intentionsof modern states are more likely to pursue their projects by engaging in a complex network of competition or collaboration and the torch relay issue is thus characterized by a diversity of interests, preferences, values and ideas, which individuals or groups seek to promote or protect in such a context; finally, the case portrayshow the outcome of one set of struggles (Olympic torch relay issue) sets the strategic context for subsequent governance decisions.