Book Chapters by Tobias Zuser
Softpower, Soccer, Supremacy: The Chinese Dream, 2020
It is often said that politics should not interfere with sports. However, the realization of Chin... more It is often said that politics should not interfere with sports. However, the realization of China’s soccer dream might also be determined by another often-neglected dimension: Who is Chinese and who can represent China internationally? The current law prohibits dual nationality and there are strict administrative procedures for non-ethnic Chinese who intend to obtain legal citizenship. In China’s current national team, the majority of players is of Han Chinese origin, while there are only a few members that belong to the country’s other 55 ethnic groups. Mixed-ethnic or non-ethnic Chinese players are completely absent. This is in sharp contrast to Europe and many Arabic countries, which have been utilizing the resources of migrants, refugees, and ethnic minorities to increase their international competitiveness. In fact, most of the top performing soccer nations in recent years seem to have benefitted from an increasingly diverse talent pool. Arguably, this global trend may also affect China’s politics of representation in the foreseeable future. For instance, in recent years, soccer development policies have put greater emphasis on the northwestern province of Xinjiang, where Uyghurs have been identified as promising athletes, reshaping the body myth previously associated with the Korean minority in China’s northeast. From an ideological perspective, a “change of face” in the national team would not only offer a socio-political opportunity to foster national identity and cohesion, but also challenge dominant notions of Chineseness. At the same time, China’s soccer dream can only be achieved in direct competition with other Chinese nationals: The Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan (officially competing under the name of “Chinese Taipei”), are all independent FIFA members and eligible to participate in international tournaments. Nonetheless, their players are also all in possession of a legal “Chinese nationality” and can choose their preferred representative team, at least theoretically. Future regulations currently considered by the Chinese Football Association (CFA) might accommodate more players from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau as “local players” in the Chinese league system, which would expand the Chinese dream beyond its current borders.1 In addition, some national sports associations have started to explore the possibility of recruiting Overseas Chinese that could boost China’s medal output in traditionally less successful sporting disciplines. Previously, such practices were better known in reverse, with foreign countries welcoming Chinese athletes, particularly in table tennis and badminton.
Softpower, Soccer, Supremacy: The Chinese Dream, 2020
While the Chinese national team will be in the forefront of attempts to realise Xi Jinping’s socc... more While the Chinese national team will be in the forefront of attempts to realise Xi Jinping’s soccer dream, there has been growing awareness that China’s professional league system has to play a major role in this visionary project. Over the last decades, nearly the entire squad of the senior team earned their wages in the domestic top division, meaning that the quality of the players has also become an important indicator for the quality of China’s soccer industry, and vice versa. Seemingly unleashed from the constraints of socialist policies, the aggressive investment in national soccer—particularly since the drastic valorisation of the Chinese Super League (CSL) from 2011 onwards—has also further established the significance of commercially run domestic clubs in this large-scale endeavour. However, given China’s resourcefulness, there remains a certain sense of confusion over why the success on the international stage lags behind countries such as Japan and South Korea. In fact, China seems to have implemented superior strategies in most sporting disciplines. Since 1992, it has constantly appeared in the top four of the Summer Olympics medal table, and—certainly not coincidentally—became the most successful nation in 2008 when hosting the world’s biggest sports spectacle in Beijing. However, throughout all these years, soccer remained fairly resistant towards this upwards trend. This has sometimes created the culturally essentialist viewpoint that there is a general struggle to properly understand team sport dynamics, often distilled down to the most convenient buzzword that appears to explain any kind of Chinese peculiarity: the concept of “losing face” which, always seems to provide the answer whenever a pundit’s cultural understanding comes to an end. However, this shorthand argument wilfully ignores China’s proven success in basketball, volleyball, and even women’s soccer. When it comes to the professionalization of soccer, China’s track record is arguably respectable. Chinese clubs such as Guangzhou Evergrande have established themselves among the best in East Asia, regularly competing at eye-level with their counterparts in South Korea, Japan, and Australia in the AFC Champions League. Meanwhile, the Chinese national team has yet to qualify a second time for the FIFA World Cup after their unsatisfying debut in 2002.
Politics and Aesthetics of Creativity: City, Culture, and Space in East Asia, Jun 30, 2015
Europe-China Cultural Compass: Orientation for Cultural Cooperation Between China and Europe , 2011
EUNIC stands for European Union National Institutes for Culture. It is a partnership of national ... more EUNIC stands for European Union National Institutes for Culture. It is a partnership of national in stitutions for culture, engaged beyond their national borders and operating with a degree of autonomy from their governments. Founded in 2006, the EUNIC membership currently includes organ isations from 26 EU countries and it is intended that this will grow to include institutes from all the member states of the European Union. With the resources of the member institutions are combined, EUNIC has an impressive reach. More than 50.000 staff, working out of about 8.000 offices in more than 200 countries.
Kufstein Congress on Sports and Culture 2009, 2010
Journal Articles by Tobias Zuser
Conference Papers by Tobias Zuser
Book Reviews by Tobias Zuser
Papers by Tobias Zuser
Hidden Agenda? Cultural Policy in Hong Kong’s Urban Redevelopment by ZUSER Tobias Master of Philo... more Hidden Agenda? Cultural Policy in Hong Kong’s Urban Redevelopment by ZUSER Tobias Master of Philosophy For many years industrial buildings in Hong Kong have formed some of the city’s most vibrant cultural clusters by providing local artists with low-cost space to pursue their creative work. However, recent efforts by the government also targeted these areas for commercial revitalization. By 2020 the industrial part of Kwun Tong, a densely populated district in Kowloon East, will not only have been transformed into the city’s second Central Business District, but also seen the majority of the current cultural workers leaving due to the rapid valorisation of land. Nevertheless, these ongoing struggles over spatial power have also opened up a new space for a critical debate on Hong Kong’s urban planning and cultural policy strategies. This research uses the non-compliant Kwun Tong livehouse Hidden Agenda as a case study to shed light on the prospects for Hong Kong’s cultural diversity ...
Journal of Sport History, 2018
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Book Chapters by Tobias Zuser
Journal Articles by Tobias Zuser
Conference Papers by Tobias Zuser
Book Reviews by Tobias Zuser
Papers by Tobias Zuser