Samsung Electronics is one of the major sponsors of the spectacular Beijing Olympics. It has spent upwards of US$100 million in this role as a springboard to an already booming market for its products. Sales in the domestic market and exports of products made in China are expected to reach some $33 billion this year. In a bit of marketing savvy, the company grabbed the title of official mobile phone sponsor of China’s Olympic team by donating over 1,000 cell phones to the team, complete with Olympics ringtones.

Samsung’s Olympics sponsorship is just the most recent example of an uncanny ability of Koreans to utilize sports to advance economic and political interests. Well known in Korea but less well known in the world has been South Korea’s ability to use sports diplomacy to facilitate major breakthroughs in relations with neighbors. One example of this was the use of the 1988 Seoul Olympics to improve relations with the Soviet Union. When Seoul won the bid to host the Summer games in an upset victory over Nagoya, Japan in 1981, its immediate concern was to ensure that Soviets and Eastern bloc countries would not boycott the games as they planned with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Therefore at the 1984 games, South Korean Olympic officials put a full-court press on all Soviet officials in Los Angeles (although the Soviet Union boycotted the L.A. Games, some Soviet officials were in attendance in their capacities as officers of the international cycling federation) urging them to attend the Seoul games. South Korea explained how the Olympics could be the beginning of great economic opportunities for Korean business conglomerates in the Soviet Union. They pointed to the opening of trade-promotion offices between Korea and Hungary (facilitated by Daewoo) as an example of the opportunities available to Moscow.

While Seoul’s improved relations with Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and others were presented as evidence of Roh Tae-woo’s nordpolitik intentions, it also put subtle pressure on the Soviets to follow suit. Once the Soviets committed to participating in the Olympics, Seoul used the opportunity to promote goodwill, offering to allow the Mikhail Sholokov to dock at Incheon Harbor, and sending a special envoy to Moscow explaining the desire to normalize relations.

The Olympics became the pretext for various high-level officials and trade delegations to come to Seoul. Both the Moscow Philharmonic and Bolshoi Ballet were invited to perform at the national theater, receiving rave reviews. The public’s enthusiasm was on full display at the opening ceremony, when the Soviet delegation entered to a standing ovation second only to the Korean delegation. Shortly thereafter, the two countries normalized relations in 1990.

South Korea’s use of sport to normalize relations with China in 1992 is probably the most understudied but successful case of Chinese engagement in international relations. In 1990, China found itself in frantic preparations for hosting the Asian Games. This was the first major international sporting event for Beijing, and its aspirations were to host it successfully as a prelude to a bid for the Olympics.

Yet the Chinese reached out and found no support from the international community because of sanctions and international outrage over the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989. Korea went out of its way, against the climate of international opinion, to help support Beijing’s preparations for the games. Having just hosted the 1986 Asian Games and Seoul Olympics, the Koreans imparted both experience and large amounts of assistance ranging from technical support to logistics to financial assistance. More than 22,000 South Korean tourists attended the games, and Hyundai donated more than 400 vehicles while other Korean companies paid over $15 million in advertising revenue. The Asian Games were a tremendous success for Beijing, and this helped pave the way for China’s difficult decision to normalize relations with Seoul despite North Korea’s objections.

While many focus on Nixon’s “ping-pong” politics as the seminal example of sport diplomacy, the South Koreans are arguably as good, if not better, at using sport to promote goodwill and international diplomacy. It is disappointing in this regard that Pyongyang chose not to enter with the South Korean delegation in the opening ceremony in Beijing and moreover requested to the Chinese that the North Korean delegation not follow the South Koreans into the stadium (the Chinese separated them by two countries).

Nevertheless, South Korean sport diplomacy will continue to set the standard in Asian politics. The next frontier? Some may have noticed that India collected its first ever individual gold medal on Aug. 11, when Abhinav Bindra won the rifle competition, defeating the heavily favored Chinese rifleman. Bindra’s sponsor? You guessed it. Samsung.

The author is director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Pacific Council. He is the author of a new book, “Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia” (Columbia, 2008).