ABSTRACT
This chapter is deliberately eclectic, if there is a single strand running through it, it is to recall Said’s attention to the historically variable, complex and distinct set of processes at play in imperial and colonial articulations of the non-Western world. it argues that the analysis of the development of sport in Modern China continues to be heavily influenced by Western thought. It outlines the extent to which sport in China has developed under the influence of postcolonialism since at least the 1980s. This provides the context for a preliminary discussion of sport and postcolonialism in Modern China. Although China was never directly colonized by any Western imperialist power, Mao Zedong frequently referred to China as a colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society in the first half of the twentieth century. On the one hand, Westernization has acknowledged an explanation of modern Chinese history; but, on the other, this negotiation of Chinese cultural identity has yet to be historically connected.
