Fri, Feb 13, 2004 page24

• Baseball trumps political fights for cross-strait rivals

  • AP
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  Baseball, not politics, is on Chinese coach Jiao Yi's mind this week as his Tianjin Tigers head to Taiwan to train with players here. Although China has missiles pointed at the nation, baseball is a tie that binds.

  "We need more practice games and to make more progress," said Jiao, putting his young prospects through their paces on a recent wintry morning. "And we heard that Taiwan was quite good at baseball."

  Taiwan is good at baseball, but it's rare for China to admit that its political nemesis is much good at anything. While Taiwan is a feisty self-ruling democracy, the Beijing government insists that it is actually part of the communist mainland but in denial.

  China's leaders are especially worried about Taiwan's March 20 elections, and have warned that any moves toward formal independence could lead to war.

  This hard-line attitude extends to sports. Since Beijing maintains that Taiwan isn't really a country, and many countries and international organizations concur, Taiwan can't participate in the Olympics under its own flag and must instead parade under a neutral Olympics flag and call itself "Chinese Taipei."

  That hasn't stopped Tianjin's sports authority from shelling out to send its baseballers across the 160km strait that divides the two rivals. This northeastern port city is something of a baseball powerhouse in China's fledgling four-team league, and it wants any edge it can get.

  The Tigers received permission from both sides to train in Taiwan for 35 days -- no easy feat, especially with the elections looming. They left Wednesday.

  "I hope to absorb Taiwan's baseball experience," said pitcher Miao Yueqiu, a lanky 22-year-old who is also on the Chinese national team. "We can study and learn by mutual discussion."

  Much as pingpong diplomacy in the 1970s helped lay the groundwork for renewed US-China relations, baseball diplomacy and other low-level exchanges bring together Chinese and Taiwanese who might not see eye-to-eye on world affairs, but have more in common than they realize.

  The studiously apolitical Jiao bristles at the suggestion that his training trip means anything for cross-strait relations. "Taiwan is a part of China, so you can't call it `baseball diplomacy,'" he says. He suggests "baseball learning exchange."

  After all, "our life, our customs, our language are all the same," he said, recalling last year's trip. "Training in Taiwan suits us."

  Few in China follow baseball, yet in Taiwan it's the top sport. The island's Little Leaguers won a whopping 17 world championships from 1969 to 1996, as the sight of its young players hoisting the Taiwanese flag in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, became a common sight.

  Taiwan got hooked on the game while a colony of Japan between 1895 and 1945; the Japanese had learned from American missionaries. Now it's China's turn -- if the Tigers have their way.

  "Some people think baseball is slow, but during the game there's actually a lot that's going on," said Miao.

  "Baseball is universal," Jiao interjected. While many young Chinese have gone crazy for basketball on the success of homegrown Houston Rockets star Yao Ming in the NBA, "you need to be tall to play basketball," Jiao said. "Baseball is a game everyone can play."

  In China, baseball is considered an intellectual game, and that's part of the appeal. It's also considered a game for developed countries, because of the money needed for special equipment and playing fields -- unlike the more egalitarian soccer.
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