In China, sports is a good barometer of national change. In the 1970s, "ping pong diplomacy" was partly responsible for China's opening-up policy. In the 1980s, China's sports system was one of the first to implement economic reform with its incentive system. Therefore, it is interesting to see what is happening now in China's sports system as a measure of what kind of social and political changes could be seen in the country in the near future.

The reform of China's State-supported sports system should be on the agenda of the 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015). For more than a decade, there has been a debate in China's sports circles about whether the pursuit of Olympic medals should be downgraded and more government effort and funding devoted to school sports and popular sports.

When Beijing won the bid to stage the 2008 Olympic Games it ensured that the pursuit of medals would continue to enable China to put up a good show as the Games' host, and a serious discussion over reform was postponed.

In the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games' soccer competition, the performance of the Chinese team was seen as a national embarrassment. In January 2010, a book, Behind the Scenes of Chinese Soccer, revealed rampant corruption in the country's professional soccer league. In this scandal, the media were able to play the role of watchdog, a new development in China. The media investigation resulted in the arrest of Nan Yong, who was simultaneously the Party secretary and deputy director of Chinese Football Association (CFA) and Chinese Football Management Center (CFMC). Currently, he is awaiting trial.

But perhaps more significant is that a new kind of public sentiment could be detected in the general opinion that Chinese soccer had "let down" Chinese people and must work to regain their "trust". As a result, the State-supported sports system is being held to higher standards of public transparency and accountability.

Chinese commentators have recognized that part marketization of soccer in China is one of the reasons for its problems. CFA is responsible for its administration and CFMC for managing corporate sponsorships and business affairs. But, in fact, they are one and the same, an example of "one office, two signs".

With the same person holding four different positions in what was essentially the same office, power and money both were concentrated in one pair of hands. This kind of system is open to corruption. In this way, Chinese soccer in particular - and the sports system in general - are microcosms of China's current position halfway between a State-planned and market economy.

The criticism of China's sports system as being too "elitist", because it only invests money in a very small number of talented athletes, needs to be put in perspective. China's State-subsidized system provides comparatively more support to women's sports, minor sports and new sports than a market-based system does. That's why China surpassed the United States in the gold tally in the Beijing Olympics, 51 to 36.

China's women won a greater percentage of its total gold medals and the country won more gold medals in new sports added to the Olympics in the past two decades. In China's system, any child who is recruited by a team will have a chance to develop his or her talent without financial obstacles, and many of China's top athletes come from poor rural backgrounds. This is not true in market-based systems, where a family's financial resources could limit children's opportunities in sports.

In July 2008, Money Magazine compared the finances of the families of two young women who were members of the Chinese and American Olympic teams for taekwondo - a minor sport in the US. It found that the Chinese family was relatively well off, but the American family had been forced to sell its home to finance the daughter's sports expenses, and had not saved any money for her to go to college. The Chinese athlete would get automatic admission in a college because of her achievements in sports.

Furthermore, government investment in sport is on the rise worldwide. One example is Britain, host of the 2012 Olympic Games. Since 2004, the funding of the British Olympic Association has increased by 80 percent. At the 2008 Olympics, Britain was placed fourth - up from its worst showing of 36th in 1996 - and it is currently requesting even greater funds to prepare for next year's Olympic Games in London. Japan, Russia, Germany and Australia are other countries that have increased government spending on Olympic sports.

Having a government body in charge of Olympic sports is not a problem in itself. The problem in China right now is that there is not enough diversity in the organization of sports.

In the US, for example, there are many different national organizations that are independent of each other, including big-time professional sports teams like the NBA and NFL, two national collegiate athletic associations called NCAA and NAIA, the US Olympic Committee with 45 affiliated national sports governing bodies and 35 multi-sports organizations, and a multitude of other organizations, such as Little League Baseball and American Youth Soccer.

In China, an increasing number of national-level championships have been created. But they are not mutually complementary, nor do they have the necessary national-level organizational structures. Sports events at the college level have increased, but they are still underdeveloped.

Though the State General Administration for Sports needs to improve its operations, more importantly the authorities have to expand or create other nationwide structures that serve other goals besides the pursuit of Olympic medals.

The author is a professor of anthropology at University of Missouri-St. Louis.