“Table tennis has had a long history as a driver of peace, and we are happy to open a new chapter of table tennis diplomacy to promote peace on the Korean peninsula.” With these dramatic words, Thomas Weikert, President of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), welcomed news of a joint Korean women’s doubles team being created in July 2018. Weikert has certainly not been alone in depicting sport as a positive force that brings together and even unites peoples and countries. The Olympic movement, indeed, was grounded in the beliefs of its founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin that sport would support and promote peace and friendship amongst peoples and countries. This idealism has continued to prevail within the Olympics and across a range of other global sports. But irrespective of the degree of justification for this idealism, there is little doubt that sport has become a major element of global socie-

中文翻译：

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和平的驱动？朝鲜半岛的乒乓外交

“乒乓球作为和平的推动者有着悠久的历史，我们很高兴开启乒乓球外交的新篇章，促进朝鲜半岛的和平。” 国际乒联 (ITTF) 主席托马斯·维克特 (Thomas Weikert) 用这些戏剧性的话对 2018 年 7 月成立韩国女子双打联合队的消息表示欢迎。甚至团结人民和国家。事实上，奥林匹克运动植根于其创始人皮埃尔·德·顾拜旦男爵 (Baron Pierre de Coubertin) 的信念，即体育将支持和促进各国人民和国家之间的和平与友谊。这种理想主义在奥运会和其他一系列全球体育运动中继续盛行。但不管这种理想主义的正当性程度如何，