Shared love of basketball links NBA and China’s ‘VBA’

Illustration: Hang Dachuan/Global Times

A few days ago, the Brooklyn Nets basketball player Ben Simmons donated a basketball court to Machang township in Southwest China's Guizhou Province during a ceremony. This move is not only a kind gesture from a professional US basketball player to local Chinese fans of the sport, but also a symbol of the friendship between the peoples of the US and China. 

Simmons has visited China several times since he was young. He has been deeply touched by the Chinese people's warmth and friendly feelings toward him and their enthusiasm for basketball. 

Impressed by the news that basketball competitions had been held in Guizhou at a village with their own "Village Basketball Association," or "VBA," Simmons decided to donate a basketball court to the village during the Chinese New Year Basketball Competition in January. After conducting a survey, he set up the basketball court in Machang township in Gui'an New Area in the hopes that it will create more opportunities for young fans to play basketball. 

"I expect to meet the Guizhou basketball fans offline soon, and I would like to extend my sincerest wishes to the Guizhou people," said Simmons.

The Guizhou Provincial Basketball Association expressed their gratitude to Simmons, and extended a warm invitation for him to take part in local games.

In the mountainous village of Machang, there are no huge electronic screens or advertisements at basketball games, but they can still be exhilarating thanks to local players' love for the sport. These players later went viral in China and even went global. A recent finals competition attracted 30,000 spectators on site and more than 1 billion viewers online.  

Comparatively, the NBA boasts the best players in the world, top-notch basketball gymnasiums and professionally made commercials, so its exciting games draw fans around the world. 

NBA and the "VBA" are thousands of miles apart, but their games are equally spectacular, rousing thousands of fans' enthusiasm. Both focus on a common interest of basketball fans in the US and China and their shared pursuit of sports and a better life. 

Although Machang township lacks modern sports facilities, the local people's fervor for basketball remains strong. So Simmons' donation will surely help improve the village's situation to a certain extent, but more importantly, it will bring people separated by the Pacific Ocean closer through this sport.

In fact, such a bond between US and Chinese people has existed for more than five decades. 

In the early 1970s, the "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" between table tennis players led to the normalization of China-US bilateral ties. Ping-pong, or table tennis, is not only a sport, but a symbol of China-US friendship. 

Although there have been fewer mutual visits since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and difficulties in bilateral ties, cultural exchanges still continued, although a majority of interactions occurred online. 

In October 2022, the Fuzhou No. 1 Middle School in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, invited students from three high schools in the US to attend an online concert so they could sing about friendship through music. 

And in January, the Happy Spring Festival Concert Echoes of Ancient Tang Poems organized by Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra debuted in New York. 

About 15 famous poems from Tang Dynasty (618-907) that had been composed were sung in Chinese by 15 singers from 10 countries. All those in attendance remarked that bilateral relations rested upon cultural exchanges as music can cross different barriers. They expressed hope that the concert could be a good start to move China-US ties ahead. 

Today we should carry forward the spirit of "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" featuring mutual respect and seeking common ground while being reserved about differences and value the friendship between the two peoples that was forged over the past seven decades. 

The sport linking the NBA and the "VBA"can act as a role model in setting up a link between the people in the US and the people of China and bring about more friendly exchanges between them.