There is a good deal of evidence that the most important tool of contemporary international diplomacy is not nuclear deterrence, teams of treaty negotiators or multilateral soft loans. No, in today's world, the most effective way to promote peace and international cooperation, it seems, is sports. And the highest practitioner of the art of sports diplomacy, quite literally, is Yao Ming, the starting center for the Houston Rockets basketball team.
When the National Basketball Association holds two official pre-season games this month in China - the first time one of the major American professional sports franchises will do so - the stands will hold not just excited Chinese fans, but also a host of diplomats and top business executives who are convinced that basketball is the key to international goodwill - and profit.
The Asia Society is teaming up with the NBA to organize a large delegation of dignitaries, team owners and the CEOs of the league's major commercial sponsors to witness this historic event. The NBA is "a force for building economic, cultural and political ties between the U.S. and countries around the world," says Nicholas Platt, the Asia Society's president. The Society's chairman, Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, gushes that "these two games in China are just the beginning of what I believe will be an important link between the world's two most important nations."
The foreign affairs experts may be correct, but if these games really have an impact on such a grand scale, it will come as a result of a marketing strategy for China in which the NBA has been investing for decades. Just after the normalization of relations between the United States and China 25 years ago, the NBA sent its first diplomatic mission in the form of the Washington Bullets (now the Washington Wizards), who played two exhibition games against the Chinese National Basketball Team.
But the 1979 Bullets - a fine team for sure, with such stars as Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld - did not have what the Rockets have today: a genuine Weapon of Mass Elation like Yao Ming. Once a fixture in the starting lineup of the Chinese Basketball Association's Shanghai Sharks, Yao spreads excitement wherever his 2.26-meter frame treads.
The NBA's partners in this global basketball initiative are looking for a decidedly more local impact vision from the pre-season games. Jin Guoxiang, President of Shanghai Administration of Sports says, "Yao Ming has worked hard and achieved extraordinary success in the NBA in just two years, and we hope that this will serve as an inspiration to all our young people."
The Houston Rockets take on the Sacramento Kings at Shanghai Stadium on October 14 at 7:30 pm, and at Beijing's Capital Stadium on October 17 at 12:00 noon. For ticket information, call 6438 5200.
(thatsmagazine.com October 11, 2004)
