This cutting edge collection presents a political reading of the power of modern sport in Asia. Providing an interdisciplinary study of political and cultural tensions in Asia, past and present, through the key case-study of sport, it illuminates the complex practices and legacies of Japanese imperialism across East and Southeast Asia through the 20th century and beyond. Focusing on the deep background to contemporary dynamics of intraregional tensions, it examines sport both as a tool of imperialism and as an agent of reconciliation as the region gears up to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Offering a unique contribution to East Asian Studies, Colonial and Postcolonial Studies and Sport Studies, this work represent key reading for students and scholars of East Asian studies, International Politics and Sports Diplomacy.

Empires: Dead, Dying and Dormant.- Empires - West and East; Curious Conjunction and Contemporary Consequences, Complexity and Circumstances.- Japanese Imperial Sport as Failed Cultural Conditioning: Korean 'Recalcitrance'.- The Unclosed Door: South Korea's Post-Colonial Sport as a Revanchist Reaction to Japanese Imperial Legacies.- A Living Legacy (Part One): Japanese Imperialism and Chinese Revanchism - Modern Sport as a Modern Medium.- A Living Legacy (Part Two): Japanese Imperialism - Residual Resentment and an Unforgiving China: the Sports Cartoon as Political Aide-Memoire.- Japanese Cultural Imperialism in Taiwan: Judo as an Instrument of Colonial Conditioning.- Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Control: Sport as a Component of Cultural Conditioning, Political Domination and Militaristic Imperialism.- A Clash of Colonialisms: Sports Culture in Hong Kong under the Japanese Occupation.- The Ambivalence of the Reaction, Response, Legacy and War Memory: The Japanese Occupation of the Malayan Peninsula: the Consequences for Sport of the Imperial Past and the Democratic Present.- Towards the Construction of a New Regionalism? The End of East Asian Colonialism: Japanese Responses and Reactions to the Games of Asia.- Tokyo 2020: Opportunity for Regional Reconciliation or Protracted Antagonism?.- Retained Memories, Political Pressures, Catalytic Moments - Tokyo 2020 Reconciliation?.- 'The past is a present country'.