The fifth annual Bennelong Cup began in Canberra today, with players from Australia, South Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand meeting in the parliament’s great hall, which was turned into a table tennis arena.
The Cup, which is an initiative of Liberal member for Bennelong and former professional tennis player John Alexander, has grown since it started in 2011 as a competition between Australia and Korea, with a new country added each year.
Mr Alexander came up with the idea for the Cup after implementing the Bennelong Schools Table Tennis Program, which saw table tennis tables donated to every school in his electorate, as a way to bring students from different cultural backgrounds together through sport.
“How [the program] started was going to the primary school at Eastwood and seeing Chinese and Korean kids being excluded from sports because they didn't want to play football, or what you might call traditional Australian sports,” Mr Alexander said.
“I got talking to the principal and said, ‘this is a bit of a sad situation because they’re not making friends’, and we came up with the idea of introducing table tennis to the schools.”
Hyundai provided around $150,000 to help fund the program and Mr Alexander believes it has offered students in his electorate greater cross-cultural communication and social connection through sport.
The Bennelong Cup has also afforded an opportunity for leaders from countries with tense relations to meet and discuss regional diplomatic issues.
South Korean ambassador Bong-hyun Kim, Chinese ambassador Zhaoxu Ma and Japanese ambassador Sumio Kusaka met at the event, as disputes between the nations in the East China Sea remain tense.
“Korea, Japan, China are very important for Australia, but recently among Korea, China and Japan the people to people contract [has been] little bit slow,” said Ambassador Kim, of South Korea.
“Bennelong Cup is very important for promoting the friendship and the good relationship among those countries.
“At this occasion I could have a chance to meet with the Japanese ambassador and Chinese ambassador and we had a chance to talk about diplomatic issues and the promotion of our friendship, our mutually beneficial relationship.”
In June this year Australia launched the ‘Australian Sports Diplomacy Strategy 2015-18’, which aims to strengthen Australia’s partnerships with countries and communities in the Indo-Pacific region.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop launched the Bennelong Cup today, saying sporting events offer a unique opportunity to “promote greater economic ties, trade, investment, educational ties, tourism benefits [and] cultural links”.
“Sport transcends barriers – it transcends languages barriers, cultural, racial, it brings people together like very few other forces,” Ms Bishop said.
John Alexander said he had seen positive communication between regional partners in previous years.
“We're friends with Korea, we're friends with China, but they're not always the best of friends, and at the conclusion of the first Bennelong Cup that China and Korea played in, the Korean ambassador put his arm around the Chinese ambassador and referred to him as ‘my dear friend’.”
The official competition begins in Sydney on Friday.
