中文
By Josef Gregory Mahoney
The 2023 Asian Games, which took place in Hangzhou from Sept. 23 to Oct. 8 with a futuristic theme, has signaled that a new era is already here — an era where records are set, including staging the largest Asian Games in history, with more than 12,500 athletes from 45 countries and regions participating.
Many around Asia and the rest of the world were excited to watch competitions in well-known international sports like swimming, basketball, and volleyball, but also in less commonly showcased sports such as wushu, kurash, kabaddi, and sepaktakraw. Nations in South Asia were particularly thrilled about the return of cricket to the Asian Games.
For those non-Asians like myself, many of these sports are completely foreign, but featuring them alongside more commonly known sports that originated in the West has long been a goal of the Asian Games — particularly because they've often been neglected by other sporting bodies, like the Olympics. In Hangzhou, however, they not only delighted Asian fans but also symbolized Asian affirmation and inclusion.
But there's much more than game playing at hand. In today's entertainment-oriented era, it's easy to overlook that sporting competitions, whether amateur or professional, between local schools, cities, or nations, have always represented more than just a pleasant way to pass the time for spectators or an opportunity for some to earn money and for others to gain glory.
They even represent more than what many perceive them to be — as peaceful competitions between nations. During the opening ceremony, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, "As a community with a shared future connected by mountains and rivers as well as cultural affinity, we should use sports to promote peace, pursue good neighborliness and mutual benefit, and reject Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation."
On multiple occasions, the United Nations General Assembly has passed resolutions endorsing similar sentiments. Indeed, events like last year's Winter Olympics in Beijing and this year's Asian Games in Hangzhou offer global platforms to showcase the best of humanity. They do so by setting aside differences to emphasize common ground and the potential to improve the human condition overall, including building a shared future for humanity.
Keeping this in mind, perhaps one of the most remarkable success stories associated with the Games is their achievement of a zero-carbon footprint. All venues and associated facilities, more than five dozen in total, have been powered by green electricity, starting well before the Games began in March of this year and are scheduled to continue this way until the end of December, well past the Games' closing ceremony.
This is exceptionally fitting as climate change and the pursuit of carbon neutrality are among the most urgent issues confronting the world today. Since China is a global leader in green innovation and development and is also at the forefront of renewable energy, the Games present both an opportunity and a responsibility to showcase carbon neutrality in practice. This is crucial as the Games act as a contemporary microcosm of a human community with a shared future.
Asia, home to the majority of the world's population, boasts civilizations, including those in China and India, that extend back thousands of years. Given its long history and dense population, Asia has had its ups and downs, at times at the forefront of human power and development, and at other times, falling victim to Western imperialism.
While Asia has been climbing step-by-step for some time, surviving colonialism, world wars, the Cold War, and postcolonialism, its rise is still in its early stages. Early successes were scored decades ago by Japan and then followed by the "Asian Tigers," and today, we celebrate China's remarkable breakthrough achievements, as well as successes emerging in Southeast Asia. We speak increasingly of India's enormous potential, hopeful that it will achieve development goals similar to those of China and likewise lift hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty.
There remain significant disagreements among some Asian nations, partly due to the legacies of extensive histories and the difficulty of resolving them within the prevailing competitive nation-state model. Nonetheless, the Chinese approach has consistently been to recognize differences while focusing on common ground. Thus, when participants from countries with disagreements with China join the Games in Hangzhou, we see a display of cooperation and competition in ways that acknowledge national identities while also transcending them.
We see the same among other nations joining the Games. For example, China successfully mediated a reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with both countries adopting the Chinese approach of acknowledging their differences but emphasizing their shared positives. Of course, this diplomatic resolution in itself is a major breakthrough, and the fact that both countries join the Games, along with others having disagreements between them, symbolizes the same.
But let's be clear: these values extend far beyond the Games. They also provide the foundations for other efforts, including those advanced by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS, as well as those supported by the Belt and Road Initiative and others. In short, with all of these advances and the Asian Games intersecting, we can say Asia works together, grows together, and plays together. This is how we should understand all of these elements working in tandem.
Today, as a new Cold War appears to be taking hold and Washington eschews the possibility of a real reconciliation with China, we can recall words from an earlier era when then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy said, "So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved."
In fact, Confucius said something similar but more succinctly thousands of years ago: "All men under heaven are brothers." These messages are being echoed in Asia today by leaders like President Xi, who has repeatedly conveyed similar sentiments to the U.S., where they have fallen on deaf ears.
Whether you are a fan of basketball or cricket or tuning to kurash or kabaddi, this message of peace, along with unity and prosperity, and its realization in Hangzhou, are the shared triumphs to behold and celebrate.
Josef Gregory Mahoney is professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University and senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University and the Hainan CGE Peace Development Foundation.
