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Chinese athletes work for the country. They live under the guidance of coaches, the sports hierarchy which in turn are fed by the government and are supervised by the government. Coaches are government employees, and so are the athletes. If these athletes and coaches were found to fare poorly, the government might be unfavourably associated. But if these poor performances were excused, the losses were presented in diminished forms, then not only the athletes, but also the coaches, government officials, or even the whole bureaucracy could be saved from severe criticisms or challenges from other forces in the country. Not being totally defeated socially, albeit the physical defeat would mean the possibility of a revival of status and the possibility of a comeback, both in the sports arena, and in the socio-political area for the government employees.
As such, when Chinese athletes or teams encountered face-threatening situations, the unfavourableness would be alleviated or even overturned by a matter of presentation skills. Whether these skills could produce the desired results is beyond the scope of the present analysis. But for sure, if these strategies to forestall the face-threatening situations are clearly evident, then it could be said that the press did some facework for the athletes and the country of the government. And there were reasons to believe that it did facework for the sake of politics since whom it protected from the loss of face or the threats to face were government employees or those who were closely identified with the country.
Another relationship between the concept of face with politics can be viewed from a more macroscopic and positive perspective: nation-building. Alan Liu, in his Communication and National Integration in Communist China, quoted Inkeles' initiation of the study of mass media and social systems in the process of nation-building. The roles of mass media in the context of nation-building is to serve as a tool of identification with the country under a specific leadership, and to help to convey a new set of norms, values and symbols across the country so as to achieve national integration. Both added together reflected polity and society (Liu, 1975: 2-3). This seems especially important in a new nation like the People's Republic of China. It was promulgated in 1949. It advocated an ideology which sounded exotic to the general masses. A convenient means would be to use familiar terms with new relationships to construct a new society. Face offers an age-old concept to manipulate with. The new relationships are up to the party leaders' wishes.
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