Extravagance and its decline : China’s triple East Asian games since the 2000s

From 2005 to 2013, the celebrations of the last three East Asian Games respectively took place at China’s two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) – Macau and Hong Kong – and one of its four municipalities – Tianjin. While Macau organized the 2005 Games in an extravagant manner, Hong Kong prepared the 2009 Games on a conservative basis. Tianjin even more frugally completed every single task for the holding of the 2013 Games. This article aims to understand the causes of their inconsistent hosting styles. The findings confirmed that the domestic elements of the SARs resulted in Macau’s extravagance and Hong Kong’s conservativeness, whereas factors relating to the central government of China led to Tianjin’s frugality. Thus, unlike the municipalities, the SARs, under their ‘One Country Two Systems’ franchise, were able to enjoy a high level of autonomy in handling local sports affairs. Data for analysis were from governmental documents, journalistic reports and scholarly works.