ABSTRACT
The 1964 Tokyo Olympics was Japan’s symbolic coming-of-age party in which a democratic and peaceful nation arose and was accepted by the international community barely 19 years after its catastrophic defeat in World War II. The 2008 Beijing Olympics was China’s turn to be the débutante who mounted a spectacular show, in part, to symbolize its self-declared “peaceful rise” while remaining nominally Communist. In actuality, Japan was the first major country in East Asia to rise peacefully and successfully. Despite the emergence of China as a regional great power in the twenty-first century, Japan remains the largest economy in Asia, exudes cultural “soft power”, and seeks to play a more active role in international affairs, especially peace-building in countries suffering from internal conflict.1
