The Shenyang Illusion
China’s basketball revival unravels right before its grand celebration
On 4 December, the great and the good of Chinese basketball gathered in Shenyang for the first National Basketball Working Conference since 1994. There was much to be celebrated when the meeting was announced earlier in the year: gone are the nonsense brought in by Yao Ming, whose stature meant he had to be accommodated, but nevertheless odious with all that Americanised talk of professionalism and of trusting the process. The national team appeared to be back on track, buoyed by friendly wins against the same opponents who had kept them out of the Tokyo and Paris Olympics.
As the year progressed, the ebullient mood went euphoric. The national team was put back on the right track by a local coach. Guo Shiqiang’s near-miss against Australia in the Asian Cup final stood in neat contrast to Aleksandar Đorđević’s quarter-final collapse against Lebanon three years earlier. It even acquired that most desired property in Chinese politics, but was never realistic in sports beyond table tennis or diving: an export success. Even though it did not exactly do it to a foreign country, Shao Jiayi’s appointment as head coach of the men’s football team was heralded as the spread of the “Guo Shiqiang model”—a young former international with top-league success and, crucially, the correct passport. Zhang Jiasheng, the new Football Association party secretary, was chosen to host the Conference for his symbolic alignment with this new narrative.
But the tone struck by Gao Zhidan, Zhang's boss, was markedly sombre and all about the balance between ambition and reality, rather than a consolidation of power as had been expected. He had to. Only days earlier, the national team had opened its 2027 World Cup qualifying campaign with two dispiriting losses to South Korea; the away game witnessed a three-quarter deficit of 34 points. Excuses could be made that the team didn't recall any player in American collegiate or professional leagues, but that only underscored how shallow the talent pool has become.
Domestic competition offers little comfort. In the CBA Cup on Friday, right after the Conference in Shenyang had wrapped up, two CBA teams lost to their opponents from the NBL, which is supposed to be a development league for the top teams. This is reignited the debate on whether the old promotion/relegation system should be restored: after all, the NBA can get away with it by being the top league in the world and it can actually deliver a financial return for the owners that invest (correctly) in the franchise, while the teams in CBA which combine business acumen and hustle are the ones which suffer the heaviest losses. The result is the eventual loss of the audience.
The exodus of viewers is hardly helped by the ongoing stalemate between the CBA and the broadcasters. Migu, which had already been hoodwinked by CBA twice (which did cost Yao Ming support), no longer believes the shame belongs to its side. With Tencent waiting in the wings, CBA is holding off on further price cuts to appease China Mobile's subsidiary. Instead, it has shortened games from 48 minutes to 40 and offered a token “Rookie Challenge”, which reminds sports fans of the Chinese Super League's U23 rule — a most deadly comparison. But influence, it turned out, goes both ways.