Contested Representations of Taiwanese Baseball: Political Interpretations and Moral Values of a National Sport

Abstract

In Taiwan, baseball is a national passion that the whole society can relate to. Appeared under Japanese rule, it was enrolled in the nationalist “physical culture” (tiyu 體育) just after WWII and became, at the turn of the 1970s, the “national sport” (guoqiu 國球) and the flagship of a state isolated on the international scene. It thus provides Taiwanese society with many symbols and references which the political elite cannot afford to ignore. Deeply involved with the education of moral values, its representations are used and claimed by the main existing political and ideological forces.