China's Olympic Image in Hong Kong

I have just come from an interesting research paper session here at the AEJMC convention. The series of papers dealt with East Asia, but the one I was most interested in was one presented by Annisa Lee from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

She discussed a survey she conducted wth Hong Kong residents gauging their impressions of how the image of the Olympics in general compared with the image of China as a Olympic host.

She began by noting that the Olympics are viewed in China and Hong Kong as a $40 billion facelift of image of country that is geared toward returning and recapturing the image of China as a proud and determined nation

Prof. Lee identified five "sports," "significance to the world", and "personal attributes" that are critical to developing the Olympic brand. She found among those surveyed that "fair competition" is the most important sports-related image of the Olympics. The respondents also thought that "fair competition" was the most important attribute China could display, but their confidence was not as high.

When it came to "significance for the world, the promotion of peace and harmony are closely connected to overall Olympic image, and for China harmony was also highest; but the promotion of peace for China was much lower.

Finally for "personal attributes", striving to do and be your best is considering the highest value, and striving is also the highest attritube for China.

Fair competition was the highest rated (meaning strongest supported) image of the Olympic brand, and China did not score well in this area

About 60% of respondents think the Chinese image to the world will improve because of the Games.

Perhapsthe most interesting finding stemmed from the question of who the survey respondents thought was the most preferable person for promotion of the Games: 726 of the respondents (there were 1011 total) said Chinese athletes; fewer than 30 said the Chinese government.

And those who push the human rights agenda (meaning seek to use the Games as a means of the improving the human rights situation in China) might find the last element of this posting with a bit of disgust. The respondents were asked their thoughts about what was the most important thing the Chinese could do in advance of the Games:

Improve environment was first; followed by security; tourism; city planning; human rights and democracy were fifth and sixth.