How sport could shape Xi Jinping’s next five-year China plan
It doesn’t feel like that long ago when the world was captivated by 2,008 drummers from China opening the Beijing Olympic Games in perfect harmony.
But that was a different China in a different era, and the Sleeping Dragon has been in something of a comatose state since due to a number of factors including Covid-19 and a shifting geopolitical perception of the superpower.
But is that dragon now awakening? And what could the sporting endgame be for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party?
“With the publication of China’s 15th five-year Communist plan imminent,” sport business and geopolitics expert Professor Simon Chadwick says, “indications are that China is about to re-engage with sport in a strategic way.”
Dr Layne Vandenberg, affiliate of the King’s College London Lau China Institute, adds that we might not get a “grand manifest destiny like we saw back when Xi Jinping released the plan for football across the country” but instead a smarter approach.
China on the rise… again?
China flirted with a successful, if unstable, top flight football league with the likes of Didier Drogba playing and David Beckham as an ambassador and was initially earmarked to host the expanded Club World Cup. Meanwhile, sports such as basketball have ballooned in popularity in the Far East. So what is the goal?
“We should expect there to be two dimensions,” Prof Chadwick continues. “Firstly, a focus on the promotion of health, lifestyle and mass participation events, which means we should expect, for instance, more marathons being staged and the domestic sportswear industry being strengthened.
“Secondly, we should anticipate more major events being staged in the country; the pandemic coincided with a major sports infrastructural building programme in China, which means that the country nowadays has fantastic facilities that are largely underutilised. We should therefore anticipate the likes of a Chinese bid to stage the 2036 Olympic Games.”
A Chinese bid for 2036 would likely lose to India, and Saudi Arabia could be a challenger four years later. But, as Dr Vandenberg suggests, part of the country’s inability to fend off political and geographical rivals stems from problems in holding high sporting office.
Open for business?
“China has wanted to host a World Cup for ages, but their standing – not only in Fifa but also in the IOC – has been ravaged by its reputation of being incredibly unstable in sports at a political level,” she says.
“It really has nothing to do with Chinese performance particularly but the level of Chinese representation in these sports governing bodies is minimal. They’d love to host more events and that’s why they’ve got World Rowing Championships and the World Games – low ticket items [to prove themselves again].”
In the meantime, however, how can China achieve instant results? Surprisingly, it could come through rugby where Hong Kong are one win away from qualifying for the 2027 World Cup. The region is now a Special Administrative Region of China with its own flag. But for how long?
“Ahead of its inclusion in the Games, the country was investing heavily in several medal-winning sports such as rugby,” Chadwick concludes. At one stage, members of the country’s armed forces were being trained to play the game.
“It is interesting therefore that whilst Hong Kong seems likely to qualify for the next Rugby World Cup, China is still struggling to develop. It is possible that China may seek to take advantage in some way of the territory’s growing prominence in the sport.”
In some respects China personifies unpredictability. What’s written beneath the headlines of the leadership’s next five-year plan could alter the orbit of global sport for decades to come, but only if they make it a priority.