Sports summit seeking to strengthen ties to China

Sporting leaders have flown to Shanghai for a Australia-China Sports Summit which aims to help break down stereotypes of us.

Port Adelaide’s newest fans in Shanghai this year. Picture Sarah Reed

Top sporting teams and leaders have flown to Shanghai for the inaugural Australia-China Sports Summit which kicked off yesterday — aiming to help break down stereotypes of an Australia boasting only brawn, and of Chinese athletic disinterest outside the Olympics.

In applauding the concept, federal sports minister Greg Hunt said the government recognised “the power of sport to act as a bridge facilitating connectivity and promoting trade” between the countries.

Representatives of Melbourne City and Newcastle Jets A-League clubs, Tennis Australia, the AFL, the National Basketball League, Football Federation Australia, and sports marketing company Gemba and stadium design firm Populous, are among those participating in the summit.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai has linked the Australian organisations with Chinese counterparts and potential business partners, who are also attending.

Andrew Hunter, the general manager for China engagement of Port Adelaide Football Club, who earlier this year won in Shanghai the first ever competitive AFL game played outside Australia and New Zealand, told The Australian yesterday: “The power dynamic in the region is shifting, so there’s a natural suspicion of China in Australia.”

But sport has the power to bring people together, he said, “in a mutually enjoyable and unthreatening way.”

Port Adelaide, he said, “has seen the rich possibility of doing something significant in the bilateral relationship” beyond even sport and business.

The club’s 60,000 members, and Adelaide people generally, “are very proud of what the club is doing in China,” he said — including funding AFL programs in 15 Chinese schools as well as preparing for five further years of annual competitive games in China.

Hunter said a recent survey of members showed that 97 per cent had a positive view of Australia-China relations, and that 57 per cent said that the club’s engagement had increased their understanding of that relationship, as well as their interest in China.

He said that while “ping pong diplomacy” between the US and China, and baseball diplomacy between the US and Cuba had helped achieve diplomatic breakthroughs, sport could also “play a regular role in enhancing understanding between countries” despite each side having world views formed in completely different ways.

Six thousand Port Adelaide supporters flew to Shanghai for the inaugural game last May, and most had never been to China before.

Hunter said they returned with a greatly enhanced understanding, and had shared that widely with family and friends: “That’s the power and value of what we’re doing.”

Hunter believes Australian rules football also conveyed Australian cultural values to China in “its solidarity, its absence of hierarchy” among players, its team ethic and its large number of Aboriginal players.

He noted that China’s Premier Li Keqiang watched a game in Sydney during his visit to Australia this year, while Malcolm Turnbull made the AFL Shanghai match the topic of his first announcement on his first visit to China as prime minister last year.

Hunter believes other AFL clubs will follow, as they have seen how Port Adelaide’s China connection has “elevated the club and widened its opportunities”.

“It’s only a matter of time before all 18 clubs are engaged in China,” Hunter said.

Port Adelaide are organising six events linking its business partners with Chinese counterparts — two in Australia and four in China — “capturing the momentum” from the annual games in Shanghai.

The club has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the sports bureau in Shandong, South Australia’s sister province in China, to collaborate on sports science — which Hunter believes holds immense commercial promise as an Australian service export.