Mihir Vasavda at Asian Games: ‘Sick man of East Asia’? From Bruce Lee to Chinese athletes, Hangzhou 2023 to deliver political and sporting answers | Asian-games News

In this ancient city where dynasties have ruled and bitten the dust, where modern-day empires have risen and continue to rise, it doesn’t take much for old wounds to resurface.Unabashedly displayed here in abundance is Chinese ingenuity and resilience, with the lens firmly focused on the sports fields. And its roots can be traced to a century-old taunt.
“China was mocked as the sick man of East Asia,” says Fan Hong, the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Sport in China. “It is now a sporting superpower.” The next two weeks will be an unapologetic exhibition of just that. It’s a throwback to the action star Bruce Lee’s 1972 blockbuster F of Fury where he thrashes a group of Japanese Judo fighters and yells, ‘Chinese are not the sick man of East Asia”. These days, Chinese athletes do it without yelling or hitting.
More than 12,000 athletes from 45 nations will display the cliched Olympic tenets of faster, higher and stronger across the 481 medal events of the Hangzhou Asiad. But when the Games close on October 8, China will top the medals tally, as it has in each of the last 10 editions since the 1982 Delhi Asian Games.
The host nation’s 886-strong athlete delegation has 36 Olympic champions, and 630 Asian Games debutants, who will compete in 407 out of the 481 medal events and fight for the 74 Olympic qualification berths across multiple disciplines.
India’s ambitious target is an overall tally of 100 medals. For China, nothing less than 150 gold medals will be considered a success. A journal with China’s state broadcaster, CGTN, said half-jokingly that their national games soon after the Tokyo Olympics were far tougher than the Asiad in some of the sports.

Indeed, when India’s athletes were taking plaudits for their best-ever Olympic performance of 7 medals, China’s 89 medalls, including 38 gold winners, were already back in action, taking part in their nationals.
Asian records and personal bests were shattered during those games, which set the tone for the Paris Olympics with the Hangzhou Asiad seen as a mere pit stop.
“Not only are we trying to finish on top of the overall medal table again, we will also approach the Asian Games as a major test ahead of the Paris Olympics to gain international experience and assess our performances against Olympic standards,” Gao Zhidan, the Director of the country’s General Adminration of Sport, was quoted as saying the China Daily.
Buzz around Neeraj Chopra
It’s not all China, though, even among the locals. There’s genuine excitement to watch Neeraj Chopra, who featured prominently on the back pages of the newspapers on Saturday, with Chinese Olympic experts handpicking him – and Japan’s sprinters – as the key men to ‘dent China’s hopes of another table-topping campaign’.
The classic, age-old rivalry between Japan and China will come to the fore in several arenas. Japan’s mixed doubles table tennis gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics denied China a clean-sweep and the battle will resume once again this week in front of partisan Chinese fans who worship their paddlers as demigods. The two nations will also face off in the pool and fencing, and if Japan get past the high-flying Indians, then on the volleyball court in the semifinals.
China’s basketball team has been under fire at home after its worst-ever finish at the World Championships recently – 29th – and the underachieving football side has been under the microscope.

These are but speed bumps in the overall scheme of things, where the hosts are expected to win close to twice as many gold medals as the second-placed nation, which most likely will be Japan.
There might not be the enduring sporting significance of China topping the medals tally yet again, but according to Fan Hong, the regional dominance doesn’t go unnoticed within the establishment.
“In a sports sense, China is always trying to beat the USA at the Olympic Games,” Fan Hong says. “Since the US isn’t there at the Asian Games, China wants to show the world it is a leading country in Asia and is also one of the dominant forces.”
When the Chinese team gathered in Beijing recently for their sendoff, this message was unequivocally delivered to them. Gao Zhidan – as per Xinhua – demanded that the athletes ‘bring glory to the country, and fully demonstrate the immense power of China’s modern sports practice.’
The players were also asked to increase their ‘political awareness’, ‘remember the greater cause of the nation and ‘present a positive image of China’s reform, development and social progress to Asia and the international community,’ the Xinhua report added.
‘Sick man of East Asia’
Much of this messaging and the urge for sporting success is rooted in the century-old taunt hurled at the Chinese of being the ‘Sick man of East Asia’. This barb, aimed at inferior physical fitness, shook the collective consciousness of Chinese people and shaped the country’s sporting ambition.
It paved the way for China’s 100-year Olympic dream, which was furthered the Commun Party after it came into power in the 1950s, according to Fan Hong, the executive dean of the Institute of Olympic Studies and Research of Shanghai University of Sport.
An art performs during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
“Sport in China is never just a game or sport. It is always a political or diplomatic tool as well. That started in the 1950s when the Commun Party took over. The Commun Party always thought that it was a window or platform to show the superiority of the country as well as the social ideology… the kind of platform it could not get from other channels,” she said.
And so, each time a Chinese athlete stands on the podium and the ‘March of the Volunteers’ – their national anthem – blares out across venues, it won’t be just about sport. It never is.
Sports where China will be challenged
While it will be smooth sailing for China in most events, Japan, South Korea and India are expected to give them tough fight in some of the sports
Table tennis: Japan the biggest hurdle
China’s TT stars, treated as demigods, will shoulder the responsibility to extend their dominance in a sport the country has ruled for decades, but a clean sweep at the Asian Games might not be straightforward. On their home turf, Japan denied China the chance to win all gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics winning the mixed doubles title. Now on China’s turf, the Japanese – led their number 1 player Tomakazu Harimoto – will once again hope to halt the Chinese juggernaut.
Swimming: A three-way contest
Olympic and world champions flood the Chinese team, with Wang Shun, Zhang Yufei and Qin Haiyang headlining the swim team. But their task won’t be easy as Japanese sensation Tomoru Honda, who won the 200m butterfly bronze at the World Championship, and South Korea’s Hwang Son-woo, the winner of the 200m freestyle bronze at the Worlds, likely to be the biggest challengers.

🏊‍♀️#Hangzhou #AsianGames #swimming💬Wang Shun, 2020 Tokyo Olympics men’s 200m mixed medley champion:“Since I arrived in the athletes village yesterday, I feel quite excited on the whole. On one side, I came back to Hangzhou and on the other side, I feel enthusiasm of the Games.” pic.twitter.com/8EkY85mmwM
— CGTN Sports Scene (@CGTNSportsScene) September 23, 2023
Badminton: World-level competition
Being the hometown girl, Chen Yufei has been followed around wherever she’s gone the whole week. Her movements and performances on the court will be equally scrutinised but in a sport where Asians dominate the world scene, Yufei and the rest of her Chinese teammates will have to play out of their skins to stand a chance. India, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea all boast of world-class players in a truly open field.
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China won the most medals in athletics at the Jakarta Asian Games (34, including 12 gold) but in the five years since, the continental landscape has changed and India is now a serious challenger. They might be excited to watch Neeraj Chopra competing for the first time on their soil but the men’s relay quartet, sprinter Jyothi Yarraji, shot-putter Tejinder Toor and a host of others are in the fray for gold medals, with Bahrain’s naturalised athletes always in contention for a top-of-the-podium finish.

Fencing: Hong Kong vs China?
Fencing might provide an intriguing sub-plot with Hong Kong’s Olympic champion Cheung Ka-long, who recently also won the World University Games title, set to extend his dominance at the Asian Games. Fencers from Japan and South Korea, too, are likely to challenge the home nation athletes in the sport that offers a dozen gold medals.