Women can hold up half of the sky — Chairman Mao Zedong

At this moment, it’s Spain 2, France 0.

Like many people, I have been watching and following avidly the World Cup games, and it looks like Spain is heading toward the championship game.

While the World Cup is a joy for the rest of humanity, it is a self-flagellation for the Chinese once every four years. I often hear from my relatives and Chinese friends the following refrain, uttered with a deep sigh, “China has 1.4 billion people but is unable to send 11 people to this World Cup.”

Technically, this is an inaccurate statement. This World Cup is men’s World Cup and Chinese males are 50% of the population. So the technically correct statement is that China has 700 million men but is unable to send 11 people to this World Cup.

You may say that this is a distinction without a difference. Eleven people out of 1.4 billion; 11 out of 700 million. What is the difference?

Unexpected gender differences

Actually, there is a difference. The difference is that China’s women have achieved what China’s men have never come close to accomplishing. During the 1990s, the Chinese women’s national team, known as the “Steel Roses,” emerged as one of the strongest teams in the world. They consistently ranked among the world’s elite, won multiple Asian championships, captured the silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games, and reached the final of the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup. No, 700 million Chinese women have sent 11 players to the World Cup, again and again.

The 1999 final, played before more than 90,000 spectators at the Rose Bowl in California, ended in a penalty shootout after a scoreless draw. China lost to the US only on penalties, finishing as World Cup runner-up. At the time, forward Sun Wen was widely regarded as one of the best players in the world; she won the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player and shared the Golden Boot as its top scorer, and in 2000 was named FIFA Female Player of the Century (jointly with Michelle Akers).

(A disclosure: I am not a sports fanatic — as indicated by the fact that I am writing this piece while watching the Spain-France game — and I got my data and facts from AI.)

China’s success during this period was remarkable. Between 1986 and 1999, the team dominated Asian football, winning seven consecutive AFC Women’s Asian Cup titles. For more than a decade, China was consistently ranked among the top three women’s teams in the world and was regarded as a legitimate contender for every major international tournament.

After 2000, however, China’s relative position declined. Although China continued to qualify for major tournaments, it no longer consistently advanced to the final stages. Nevertheless, the team is still one of Asia’s strongest teams, demonstrated by its dramatic victory at the 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup. China defeated Japan in the semifinals and came from two goals down to beat South Korea 3–2 in the final, winning its first Asian title since 2006. Today, China is generally ranked among the world’s top 20 women’s teams and remains a regular participant in major international competitions.

China's women led the way

The contrast with the Chinese men’s national team is striking. Despite much greater public attention, financial investment, and political support, the men’s team has achieved relatively little at the international level. China has qualified for the FIFA Men’s World Cup only once, in 2002, when it lost all three group-stage matches without scoring a goal. The men’s team has never advanced beyond the group stage of the World Cup and has never won the AFC Asian Cup, finishing as runner-up only twice, in 1984 and 2004. In recent years, it has often struggled even to qualify for the final stages of major tournaments.

Is this contrast between men’s and women’s football a general phenomenon? I went to China Statistical Yearbook 2012 to check. Table 22-40 lists world championships won by Chinese athletes from 1978 to 2011. (For some reason, since 2012, the Chinese statistical releases no longer disclose the data by gender.)

Here is what is revealed in the data:

– Between 1978 and 2011, 58% of championship wins by the Chinese athletes were in women’s games;

– The Chinese women’s dominance over their male counterparts gained over time. Between 1978 and 1995, their share of the championships by the Chinese athletes was 51%, but their wins increased to 66% between 1996 and 2011;

– In some years, Chinese women were absolutely dominant, winning 91% of championships by the Chinese athletes in 2003, 77.8% in 2004, 86% in 2005, 73% in 2007, and 71% in 2008.

More than half the sky

Chairman Mao Zedong once said, “Women can hold up half of the sky.” In sports, with fewer resources and less limelight, they hold up 58% of the sky.

Writing as a Chinese man, I readily concede that Chinese women are the better half of the population. Chinese women not only excel in sports; they also excel in business and academia. Here is a 2022 headline from Quartz: “Half of the world’s self-made women billionaires are from China.” Of the six rumoured top contenders for the 2026 Fields Medal, one is a woman, and she is Chinese: Professor Hong Wang at NYU.

There is a common underlying feature of these arenas in which Chinese women have excelled: sports, business, and academia are ultra, ultra competitive and the performance outcomes are not judged and decided by the people who are also the participants in them.

There is one arena that lacks these features — Chinese politics, and there is not a single woman in the Politburo.

This article was first published in Substack by Yasheng Huang, as “Women can hold up half of the sky—Chairman Mao Zedong”.

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