The General Administration of Sport is the government agency responsible for sports in mainland China. It is subordinate to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. It also administers the All-China Sports Federation and Chinese Olympic Committee. The agency is currently led by minister Gao Zhidan.

History

In the 1950s, the State Physical Culture and Sports Commission under General He Long conducted sports exchanges with the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. During the Cultural Revolution, in 1966, China's national teams stopped training and withdrew from all international events. In 1968, the commission was placed under the People's Liberation Army and General Lin Biao. 1970, China's national teams began competing again. The first major international event a Chinese team participated in since 1966 was the World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan, which ultimately led to the ping-pong diplomacy with the United States. In 1972, the commission was removed from PLA control. The commission was tasked with facilitating sports diplomacy. In 1974, it exchanged 172 groups of 3,200 athletes with eighty other countries, most of them in the Third World. In June 2017, due to improper "re-accommodation" of the chief coach Guoliang Liu, 4 players and 2 coaches in Chinese National Table Tennis Team declared to leave the 2017 ITTF World Tour Chinese Open.

List of directors