Singapore has and is a totally independent country from Malaysia officially as well. Just like can we say countries like
Armenia,
Azerbaijan,
Belarus,
Estonia,
Georgia,
Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Moldova,
Russia,
Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan,
Ukraine, and
Uzbekistan are Russia +?
I would say China has 2 extra countries sent to the games. Isn’t Hong Kong already under China officially? And already totally under China control? Now I like to see Hong Kong being able to sent their own players to these game
Especially Table Tennis as their TT culture is still very strong and they do have very good none “mainstream” style of players.
Same goes for Taiwan which almost
Everyone says is
China but probably China does
Not have full say at this time to not allow them to send their own term to any games.
If it’s official and recognised then let it go. As Germany only sent one term
And not 2 since they become one country.
After so many posts about Taiwan being China B team, not sure how many people thinks its part of China, especially in governance and table tennis.
Lets compare HK and Taiwan, in these 2.
HK - China has taken over the governance of the city. Imigration from China to HK is very simple.
From table tennis, the influence is still very heavy from within China. Most of the players are still Cantonese per se, but so is guandong province and HKTT backing is majority guangdong province.
Taiwan - even though China calls it Taiwan province, but so does the Republic of China (the ruler of Taiwan). So if we don't talk about the 2 China, or only 1 China (the ROC China, or the PRC China), lets just talk about the governance of Beijing over Taiwan? - there isn't really any internal control (other than maybe some on Beijing's payroll - which is illegal within Taiwan), other than Beijing's China using external factors to attempt to control Taiwan. Bejing doesn't choose who runs for president, or doesn't set laws for Taiwan. So this part, it is very different to Hong Kong. Hong Kong doesn't have its own army, Taiwan does. So Taiwan does has many sovereignty of it's own when compared to Hong Kong.
Just go visit both "countries" and tell me, how many Chinese flags you find flying on the streets in HK versus that of Taiwan. I'm in Taiwan for 4 years now, and I have not seen 1 Chinese flag on the streets.
Now more importantly, is Table Tennis.
Maybe 30 years ago, you can say, Taiwan's TT is China's B team. But the likes of Chen Jing etc, have since retired....20 odd years ago. The modern group or all locally developed.
Yes, Chuang spend 2 years in China (when he was around 15 years old) and was asked to join the CNT, but he declined (this was when he was beating the main Chinese junior players). Chuang was banned to train in China, so his mom than arrange Chuang to train under a fake name for 1 final year. That is about Chuang's stint in "China" in the development of his TT career. Chuang was already very good before going to China.
Yes, now and then Chinese training partners will be hired in Taiwan, but today, they mostly use non Chinese.
Lin's coach is officially Japanese, Cheng's coach is officially American.
Kao's coach is Chuang, and they don't even speak Chinese, they speak Taiwanese.
Feng's and Huang's coach is Taiwanese (P card), Chen's and Chien's head coach is Taiwanese.
If we consider Lin's and Cheng's coach as originally Chinese,
then we can compare that Japan is even more of a China B team than Taiwan.
The JNT players grow up with spoken Chinese likely more than that of the Taiwanese players (where many coaches still communicate in Taiwanese).
Well, based on strength
If any, Japan's TT is China B team.
PRK is C team
Hong Kong is D team
USA as half E Team (coaching influence on the other players, maybe 70% E team lol)
To consider Taiwan as even 2 or 3, is very naive and have little understanding of how table tennis in the above countries work.
and every country (with NBA players), are all American? so its USA vs USSR in basketball? This is so boring with today's international era
