BY: IAN HARRISON

SPORTSNET.CA
Sport in China has come a long way since the days of ping pong diplomacy. Four decades after table tennis helped bring about a thaw in relations with the United States, athletics in the world’s most populous nation have advanced and grown at an incredible rate. What was once an amateur-only, government-run system has evolved into an Olympic-champion system with a burgeoning set of professional leagues. China isn’t just exporting star players overseas, but also beginning to attract foreign talent to domestic teams. And Chinese athletes are showing success in sports that weren’t even played there a generation ago. This week, The List looks at China’s rapid rise in the sports world.

The latest Western athlete to choose China is French soccer star Nicolas Anelka. The Chelsea striker bid adieu to the Blues this week to sign a lucrative two-year deal with the Blue Devils, better known as Shanghai Shenhua of the Chinese Super League. Former France legend Jean Tigana is expected to join his countryman as Shenhua’s coach sometime soon, and rumours are starting to swirl that Anelka’s old Chelsea teammate Didier Drogba is being tempted by a yearning for big yen.

Anelka, however, isn’t the most expensive signing by a Chinese soccer team this year, although you may never have heard of the player who broke the bank. In July, Guangzhou made midfielder Dario Conca one of the world’s highest-paid players, signing him away from Brazilian club Fluminese for a Chinese-record transfer fee of more than $13 million, then agreeing to pay him $31 million over three and a half years. That stunning salary puts the unheralded Argentine on par with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney among the top earners in the game.

Locked out by owners while they negotiated a new CBA, several basketball players got back on the court this fall by finding an entirely different CBA: the Chinese Basketball Association. The Denver trio of Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith and Wilson Chandler were the highest-profile players to sign with Chinese teams, but Suns guard Aaron Brooks and former Raptor bench-warmer Quincy Douby were among the others who signed deals. The only catch? They can’t leave now that the lockout is over and must stay in China until season’s end in March, likely wiping out an NBA return.

So far, China’s standards for athlete travel, accommodation and cuisine aren’t quite as luxurious as the more established leagues, and communication breakdowns can occur. But that doesn’t mean it can’t become a comfortable home. After a rough introduction, former NBA guard Stephon Marbury says he’s found peace in China, and a fair amount of success, too: he led the Beijing Ducks to a perfect 10-0 start this year. Now a star again, he’s re-releasing his Starbury line of low-cost shoes, and could cash in beyond his wildest dreams if China’s massive market of 300-million basketball fans start buying.

The sheer size of China’s population is staggering. And the collective buying power of those 1.3 billion people make the country a marketers dream. But for athletes who don’t play there, how to get a foothold with fans? With Twitter and Facebook blocked by the ‘Great Firewall of China,’ stars like Real Madrid’s Ronaldo are setting up shop on Chinese microblogging sites, or Weibos. The site Ronaldo uses has more than 230 million users, while rival site Sina Weibo boasts another 200 million. The NBA has eight million followers on that site alone or two and a half times as many as it has on Twitter in the rest of the world.

Badminton has long been the most popular racquet sport in China, but tennis is taking over. The WTA started an office in Beijing in 2008, the same year American star Michael Chang opened an academy in Shanghai. And in 2011, Li Na became the first Asian player to win a Grand Slam singles title. Months after losing the championship match at the Australian Open, Na ruled the clay courts of Roland Garros, beating defending champ Francesca Schiavone in the French Open final.

Curling was born in Scotland but it’s Canada who has ruled the roaring game in recent years, capturing countless podium places at the World Championships and Olympics. Those decades of dominance might not last much longer now that China has broken out the brooms. The national team program didn’t start till 2003, but it’s already seen success: China’s women won gold at the 2009 Worlds and brought home a bronze from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Lagging well behind Asian rivals Korea and Japan, China’s baseball team hasn’t made much of a mark in the first two editions of the World Baseball Classic. Maybe that’s because the country is more focused on cleaning up in cricket. Even though the men have yet to win a match at a major tournament, the Chinese Cricket Association has set some lofty goals: 20,000 players by 2015, a World Cup berth by 2019, and a place among the top playing nations by 2020.

College football games in China? You can bet it won’t be long before that happens. Last weekend, the commissioner of the Pac-12 flew to Beijing on a fact-finding mission, saying he hopes to schedule a game there within three-to-five years. Stanford and Notre Dame have already discussed moving their 2013 meeting to China, while Oregon (where Nike’s influence is strongly felt) is eager to expand its brand to China’s massive market.