Imperialism through sports: China’s strategy for global hegemony

The instrumentalization of sport in imperialist projects operates through three main dimensions: cultural hegemony, ideological construction through media and symbolic representation, and economic exploitation tied to global markets China reproduces classical imperialist methods by embedding national sports, broadcasting rights, and stadium construction into its development agenda. At the same time, Beijing advances a neo-imperial approach that reconfigures global hierarchies and introduces new forms of disruption. Mega-events, market dependencies, and censorship mechanisms generate asymmetric relations that suppress dissent while consolidating Chinese geopolitical authority. Thus, sport functions as an arena of authoritarian infrastructural power and conditional influence. BRI, combined with sports diplomacy and global sponsorship networks, links cultural outreach with indebtedness and surveillance, producing systemic dependencies beyond conventional imperial practices. This study argues that through a dual strategy blending classical and neo-imperial methods, China reinforces traditional patterns of hegemony and introduces disruptive innovations that recalibrate the global order through sport.