Xu Versus Wushu: Synecdoche and Apologia in Nationalized Sports Losses

Nationalized sports are powerful rhetorical tools for collective identity and ideology. Nations often hold up athletes, teams, and contests as emblematic of core values. However, the competitive nature of sports means that those representatives, or synecdoche in rhetorical terms, may come up short. In such cases, nations must address the embarrassment the losses incur. Nations use apologia and image-repair strategies to mitigate the damage that shortfalls cause to repair and protect the connections the nations have with their sports synecdoche. The interaction of the uncertainty of sports, synecdoche, and apologia is the essence of this analysis. This essay analyzes responses of the Chinese state-run media to a series of defeats that traditional Chinese martial artists faced against MMA (mixed martial arts) fighters. The government had long used traditional martial arts as a synecdoche of its culture. The losses incurred threatened those representations, and state media engaged in an apologia campaign to alleviate the damage.