ABSTRACT

Compared to other chapters, which focus on each of the relatively traditional sport areas in China, this chapter pays specific attention to all the emerging areas in the Chinese sports scene. China’s political and social changes and economic boom have fuelled the burgeoning of development in a range of non-traditional areas, ranging from professional sport and commercial sport, to the sports industry and sports media. These have enriched the scope and further increased the vibrancy of the Chinese sport. This chapter incorporates the updated progress and trends of Chinese sport in particular in relation to these areas, the development of which has been fundamentally supported and propelled by the central government, evidenced in the fundamental policy plan and document issued by the State Council. A commonality throughout all these emerging areas is the growth and increased significance of non-governmental actors, most notably social and market elements, which demonstrate the increased evidence of pluralism in Chinese sports scene. However, there are still clashes between the emerging market and social elements and traditional government intervention, which may affect the speed and degree of a market-centred sports industry and the future direction of sport professionalisation in Mainland China. Responding to this, the central government has expressed its commitment to the weakening of government power through the de-governmentalisation campaign. Some progress has been made, but it remains to be seen as to whether this policy objective will be realised particularly on the basis of a balance between sports and regions.