China Olympic History

One thing I really enjoy about my family is how intellectually curious everyone is. In a comment to my last post, my ever-inquisitive sister-in-law asked "Say, here's a question, why did China not participate in the [Summer] Olympics during the 30+ years prior to the 1984 LA Olympics??"
Wow, here I am, someone who eats up all sorts of China stuff and I had no idea there was such a gap. That, of course, instigated a spate of internet research to find out what the history was. Which is a fascinating thing in itself when you're researching the history of regime that controls things as tightly as the Chinese. You can go for the official version with the usual biases, random articles that seem helpful, but you're not really sure of the quality / accuracy, if they have an agenda or what it is, wikipedia entries that could use a little grammar help, the Americanized version (i.e. many pictures and few words), etc..
It's a muddled history, depending on which source you read. Ah, if I only had primary sources! But, I'm not quite up to that level of research on this topic tonight.
Anyway depending on which source you read, here are some Chinese Olympic highlights

1896: The IOC either does or does not extend and invite to the Qing dynasty to participate in the first Olympics. If they do get an invite, the Qing dynasty does not reply.

1932: The government in Manchuria was going to send two athletes, but one of them(Liu Changchun) refused to represent the Japanese puppet regime, and was then sponsored by the Chinese nationalist government. The other athlete (Yu Xiwei) either was arrested by the Japanese or also attended the games. I go with the first option, as he is not mentioned in the official version of the history, and if a 2nd Chinese athlete had spurned the Japanese, I'm sure the PRC would mention it.

1952: China attends for the first time as the "People's Republic of China" (though arrives too late to compete due to political disputes as to whether to invite Taiwan or China) A cut from the "official version" shows you why I love reading propaganda: "With the overthrow of the Kuomintang government, which was rotten to the core, the People's Republic of China was established in the next year. Paying great attention to the people's health and the cause of sport, the new regime adopted a positive attitude toward the global Olympic Movement."

1956: Versions of this are pretty darn muddled, but suffice it to say that the whole "one China" question raises it's head. It appears to me that the PRC boycotted the games since they included athletes from the Republic of China (Taiwan). PRC-slanted histories say the IOC banned them from the games or kicked them out of the IOC in favor of Taiwan, but my impression is that their logic is that since the IOC tolerated the presence of Taiwan, they "forced" the principled PRC to withdraw, which is in their view, being banned.

1980: The PRC rejoins Olympic competition at Lake Placid following a compromise where Taiwan will compete under "Chinese Taipei", using a special flag, rather than their national flag. However, they boycott the Summer Olympics in the USSR, along with other countries, due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1984: The PRC rejoins the summer competition. Actually, since the 1952 team was the first PRC team, and arrived too late to compete, and the 1956 team boycotted on the eve of the games, this is really the first team from the PRC to compete in the Summer Games.

Anyway, there is a brief history of China in the Olympics for everyone. It may even be mostly accurate! ;)