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The Beijing Olympic Games, one of the most significant social events for contemporary China, is a milestone for China's efforts for globalization. ‘One World, One Dream’, the motto of the Beijing Olympic Games, is an embodiment of the encounter between Chinese culture and Western civilization, and a symbol of integration between China and the rest of the world. This Special Section seeks to address the psychosocial ramifications of the Beijing Olympic Games and, thereby, to shed light on China's domestic situation and its international relations from a social psychological perspective. Moving beyond the psychology of athletic excellence, the four papers included use a wide range of methods, ranging from longitudinal tracking to priming, to examining self-construal and volunteering, to representations of China's past and future, competition towards foreigners, and perceived intercultural differences. Consistently found across the papers, patriotism was associated with ingroup cohesion, whereas nationalism was associated with competition and differentiation towards outgroups. This Special Section thereby pays tribute to the social psychological significance of the Beijing Olympic Games to China and the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate whether and how the Beijing Olympic Games influenced the Chinese competitiveness towards foreigners, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal study and found that participants' competitiveness towards foreigners from five comparison target nations, particularly towards Japanese, South Koreans and Kenyans, was higher during the Games than before and/or after. We further found that nationalism predicted the competitiveness toward Japanese and South Koreans, but did not predict the competitiveness toward Americans, Russians and Kenyans. Additionally, we found that patriotism played little role in the effects of the Games on competitiveness towards foreigners. We herein discuss the relationship between national comparisons, nationalism and national conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will China's authoritarian leaders succeed in building a future by erasing the past? Can the ideology of “nationalist consumerism” obliterate memory altogether? Will the Olympic applause drown out the weak and exiled witnesses of the Tiananmen crackdown? In this section we listen to a key Tiananmen student leader two decades on as well as check in with today's young elites in Beijing. A political leader from the reformist regime in 1989 calls for justice from house arrest and a young Chinese novelist wonders what kind of identity is possible without memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]