China just looks at sports differently. Mao set the tone when he saw Western type athleticism as bad. The rest of the world they get into professional sports mostly for fame and fortune meaning by its nature only the fewest people possible could ever attain this. The more there are, the more it's diluted. In the US a lot of athletes come from less prosperous backgrounds because that is seen as something they can attain without having a lot of money. Those successes inspire others to try but again only the fewest people possible could ever get it. So what you have left is more people that weren't success stories that didn't spend their time like being educated for other careers and they're left with low paying jobs for the rest of their lives. That's why Chinese parents tend to frown at such things because what are the chances? That kind of environment doesn't exist in China.
Why do you think it's so important for the West to force Chinese and the rest of the world to embrace Western values? They want people to think it's because they have the best values for society where everyone can be happy. No, that's the bait. The real reason why is to get power, influence, and money over and from you for themselves. When the Chinese movie box office exploded, Hollywood was making demands of unrestricted access to the Chinese market without catering to Chinese tastes. Isn't that the best way to make the most money?
What was important to Hollywood is they wanted to force American tastes on the Chinese which meant liking only Americans actors wanting to watch their movies, liking only American storytelling so Chinese audiences gravitate to watching only their movies. Appealing to Chinese tastes takes time and cost money. When you hear an American movie costs $200 million dollars to make, double that which how much money it cost for including marketing. Appealing to Chinese tastes will only cost them more money. If they can get Chinese to embrace Americans values and tastes, it won't cost them more while more money flows in for them because they brainwashed Chinese to only liking American movies. That's just one facet. They want that in sports, They want that in business. They want that with Chinese consumers. They want that in technology. They want that in everything not because it's good for all but because it's only good for them. If they can control what people value, because that's why they want everyone to embrace Western values, they control you by denying you what is valued until you do what the want.
That's why I'm ambivalent to any talk of valuing anything like from Western sports institutions. If you like playing soccer, then you like soccer. There's nothing wrong with that but yearning to be a part of them is another thing entirely. If the Chinese created a good enough team, you don't think there would be accusations of cheating? That's what they do when they lose. It's not some big kumbaya party that they want everyone to join in. They just want you to value it so it'll be more devastating for you when they deny it and take it away. Valuing what they have only makes them more arrogant. That's the whole point from their end on why they want everyone to embrace their values. Do you know how to slay a god? It doesn't need armies fighting great wars. It doesn't need lightning bolts from the heavens. All you need to slay a god is just not to believe and they just die disappearing into nothing.
While I do advocate for China doing better in football. I do agree with your statement. Football, is actually a part of the overall Western machine of pop culture. The West like to celebrate the poor brown people achieving great heights in football. They are promoting this as a way of 'poverty alleviation' for the poor brown kids in the global south. What they don't tell is why that poor brown kid is poor in the first place. Hint: Western colonial legacy and the current neo-colonialism.
The message of the West is this:
Let's say that there is a poor boy in a village in Africa. He has big dreams ahead of him. His way out of his poverty is not by studying to become an engineer or doctor. No, his destiny is to become a footballer in Europe, to play for the biggest clubs and earn the big bucks in the process. That once-poor African kid can buy the Ferraris, party in the posh European nightclubs, date supermodels, and buy the greatest real-estates in Europe.
What the West don't tell is this:
A footballer's most competitive age is from 20-30 years old. That means that that African kid only has about 10 years of earning the big bucks. Worse still, out of thousands of African kids who chose become professional footballers, only a handful could actually make it to become world class and earn the big bucks. Most footballers who retired from the sport are not wealthy. Worse still, they will not have learnt any other skills to enable them to enter into other industries. Even for some of those who have managed to earn big; when they retire, their wealth didn't last. Because they lack the financial intelligence to grow and maintain their wealth.
Not only that. That African footballer can choose to play in an European nationality if he is good enough. Higher chances of winning trophies. Look at the French football team in particular. There are many ethnic-African players of the 1st or 2nd generation. In a way, the West are taking talented footballers away from Africa. France also happens to be the most meddlesome European nation in Africa in the last few decades.
The West's idea of 'success' for a footballer is very individualistic. Most of the story is only about the struggles and success of an example individual. That African footballer who became successful in Europe could return to his village and donate money into charities. But as the history of charities have shown, that doesn't actually do anything to overall poverty alleviation. That village remains impoverished, perhaps looking to supply more future footballers to Europe in hopes that some of those could come back and donate more. The West enjoys this cycle of dependence. Africa and the Global South supplying them with talented athletes for entertainment, in exchange for handouts.
The West hates the idea of the Global South catching up in hard economy. They don't like Africa, Asia, or South America to modernize and prosper. Because that would mean that those countries in the Global South would no longer be their playthings. They like Africans to become athletes and entertainers in the West. But they don't like Africans inviting the Chinese in to help them grow a real economy for the masses.
With all that being said. Creating good athletes for a Western sport is not exactly a wrong thing. Instead of worshipping the West, it could be a way of challenging them, as it is often in China's case. Many of the sports in the Olympics are Western sports, such as Badminton, Table Tennis, Volleyball, etc. China already has plenty of world-class Olympic athletes, even when it possesses the most powerful industrial economy in the world. Hence It is not wrong for China to develop a competitive football team. Besides, it is a luxury that China can afford to develop today. Right now, China needs to have more football players playing in the European league, to learn the sport properly. Just like having Yao Ming and other Chinese basketballers playing in the NBA. If any Chinese football players become truly world-class, they'll become the pioneers of a new era of football in China. Just like the other sports where world-class Chinese athletes become pioneers of making China a powerhouse. For China's case, having world-class athletes in Western sports is not about being 'cool', or being included in some Western club. It is more of a patriotic duty, to show to the world that China can compete with the best in the athletic world. Even if that athletic world is dominated by sports invented exclusively by the West. Western-rules, Western-bias, Western-hate, no problem, China can still beat the West in some of those sports.
