Page 2 of 2 Olympic clock ticks for
unified Korean team By Brian
Bridges
was achieved. There is
considerable agreement on issues such as the flag
(the unification flag), the national anthem to be
played when medal winners are on the podium (the
1920s version of the traditional Korean folk song
"Arirang"), and the uniforms (following earlier
designs but all supplied by the South). One key
area remains outstanding - and it is an issue that
has remained since those early days of the 1960s -
how to choose the athletes to compete.
The unification flag used since
1991 For individual sports, the accepted
manner is for individual athletes to achieve
qualification for the Olympics by reaching the
necessary standards set by the IOC. The problems
come with
team sports. The disagreement
basically boils down to the selection of team
members. The South argues that the athletes should
be chosen on merit (simply the best players from
each side), while the North argues that they
should be chosen in equal numbers, to reflect the
truly unified and egalitarian nature of the team.
For the South, one unified team should be stronger
than two divided ones, particularly in certain
team sport events.
For the North, it is a
matter of national pride that its athletes should
not be seen as inferior to the South's and should
be treated equally. Clearly in some team sports
the South is stronger, such as men's soccer and
handball, while in others the North has a stronger
international reputation, such as women's soccer.
Even if the basic principle of selection is
agreed, there remains the issue of the mechanism
for selecting the players through training or
practice matches or some other format.
At
the second North-South Korean Summit in Pyongyang
in October 2007, the issue was briefly discussed,
but the only agreement was on Kim Jong-il's
proposal that a joint cheering team should be
formed and travel on the newly-opened cross-border
train from Seoul to Pyongyang and then on to
Beijing.
What role can the IOC and China,
whether the government or the Beijing Organizing
Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), play? As
before, the IOC is encouraging from the sidelines,
but is less actively involved than it was in the
pre-1988 talks. In addition, to induce some degree
of urgency, it has pointed out to both Koreas that
the team qualifying competitions already have
begun. Soon it will be too late to change already
settled finalists.
China has committed
significant resources and prestige to hosting a
successful Olympics. In the Korean context, China
would like to have at the very least the
repetition of the joint entry parade at the
opening and closing ceremonies. It is playing an
additional role by announcing that the Olympic
torch route will pass overland from Seoul to
Pyongyang in April this year.
But, as with
its role in pushing forward a solution to the
nuclear issue through hosting the six-party talks
and cajoling the participants towards a solution
(the February 2007 agreement, for example), China
is probably looking for more in the sports field
too. In other words, the goal is joint entry plus
alpha. A real joint team for the first time in
Olympic history would at the very least bring
reflected glory to China. China has so far
remained largely on the sidelines, as the two
Koreas deal with the IOC, but some informal
pressure, especially on the North Koreans, may be
expected in the coming months.
However,
even if the joint team concept is unrealizable,
China may yet try to gain other diplomatic and
political benefits from Korean participation.
Whereas a North-South summit between Roh and Kim
was held in October 2007, the newly-inaugurated
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has made it
clear that he is in no rush to head North,
expecting Kim to come South first. If that
situation remains stalemated, then perhaps the
Olympics in Beijing could provide another
opportunity to bring the two leaders together.
Invitations to the two Korean leaders, Lee and
Kim, to attend the opening ceremony might enable
an unprecedented three-party summit to take place
in Beijing under President Hu Jintao's auspices.
The way forward For some
observers and participants, sporting contacts are
a way to overcome or at least ameliorate political
conflict and so can contribute to improving
international relations. Park Sung-il, a South
Korean NOC official, has said: "We are all
brothers, one mind, one soul. And we are confident
that through sports we can bring the two Koreas
together" [9].
A China Daily editorial
writer has also written that a joint Korean team
for the Beijing Olympics "is expected to help
achieve new breakthroughs in inter-Korean
relations. The significance of such a partnership
will go far beyond sports" [10]. The basic point
is that socio-cultural exchanges, of which sport
is a key example, can contribute to co-existence
on the Korean Peninsula and, ultimately, to
unifying the nation.
For others, however,
it is politics that drive, distort or obstruct
sporting exchanges. Byun Jin-Heung, describing the
Korean situation, has argued that "although the
basic principle requires that inter-Korean sports
exchange should be freed from the shadows of
political manipulations, it has not been able to
pull it off" [11]. From this perspective, for
socio-cultural contacts to be effective in
inducing change a basic convergence in political
and economic standpoint is necessary. In divided
societies and countries, where nationalism and
political legitimacy are closely intertwined,
sporting contacts and cooperation are likely to be
dictated by political and diplomatic
circumstances.
In February 1963 then IOC
president Avery Brundage wrote to the president of
the North Korean NOC declaring that the initial
agreement to form a united Korean team for the
next Olympics was "a great victory for sport"
[13]. His optimism proved premature back then. Can
his dream be realized 45 years later?
The
answer is almost certainly "no" and the recent
decision by football's governing body, FIFA, to
switch the March 26 North Korea-South Korea World
Cup qualifying match to Shanghai because the two
countries could not agree on which flags and
national anthems should be used at that game
(originally scheduled to be played in Pyongyang)
suggests that sporting relations may even be
deteriorating. While diplomatic and political
relations between North and South remain
"abnormal", the prospects for "normal" sporting
exchanges remain cloudy. In this context, it
remains highly likely that once again, in Beijing,
no unified Korean team will compete in the
Olympics.
Notes 1. Ha
Nam-Gil and J A Mangan, "Ideology, Politics,
Power: Korean Sport - Transformation, 1945-92", in
J A Mangan and Fan Hong, eds, Sport in Asian
Society: Past and Present, (London: Frank
Cass, 2003), p 214. 2. Christopher Hill,
Olympic Politics. (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1992). In the 1956, 1960 and
1964 Olympics, an all-German team competed,
composed of athletes from both West and East
Germany. Wallace Irwin, Politics of
International Sport: Games of Power,(New York:
Foreign Policy Association, 1988), p 38. 3.
Full details are in Brian Bridges' "Reluctant
Mediator: Hong Kong, the Two Koreas and the Tokyo
Olympics", International Journal of the History of
Sport, Volume 24, No 3, March 2007, pp 375-391.
4. Richard Pound, Five Rings Over Korea
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1994). See also
Park Seh-jik, The Seoul Olympics: The Inside
Story (London: Bellew Publishing, 1991).
5. Gabriel Jonsson, Towards Korean
Reconciliation: Socio-Cultural Exchanges and
Cooperation. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp
119-120. Byun Jin-Heung has argued that
effectively there was an eight-year break in
inter-Korean sports exchanges in the 1990s.
"Inter-Korean Exchanges and Peace on the Korean
Peninsula", in Peace on the Korean Peninsula
through Sports Exchange. (Seoul: Sports
Institute for National Unification, 2003),
pp131-132. 6. Choi D, "Building Bridges: The
Significance of Inter-Korean Sports and Cultural
Exchange", East Asian Review, Winter 2002, p
112. 7. Song Young-Dae, "The Political
Situation on the Korean peninsula and the 2010
Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games", in Peace on
the Korean Peninsula through Sports Exchange.
(Seoul: Sports Institute for National Unification,
2003), p 30. 8. The president of the North
Korean NOC sent a letter to Rogge in December 2005
stating that a Pyeonchang Olympics would enhance
reconciliation and cooperation between the two
Koreas. Korea Times, December 22, 2006. In July
2007, Pyeonchang lost the decision to Sochi,
Russia. 9. South China Morning Post, November
1, 2005. 10. China Daily, February 27, 2004.
11. Byun, "Inter-Korean Exchanges", p
133. 12. Olympic Studies Center Archives,
Lausanne, Switzerland: Avery Brundage Collection,
microfilm of papers from Box 138.
Brian
Bridges is professor and head of the Department of
Political Science and director of the Center for
Asian-Pacific Studies, Lingnan University. This is
a revised and updated version of a paper presented
at the International Conference on "China and
Korea: A New Nexus in East Asia?" hosted by
Lingnan University's Institute of Humanities and
Social Sciences, May 30-31, 2007.
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