Operation Yao Ming

Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar

by Brooke Larmer

Gotham Books, $203

China's towering Yao Ming may wish he was simply a basketball player defined by his rebounding and scoring prowess. But as even the most casual follower of sports knows, Yao is more than that. A national figure in China and a multimillion-dollar corporate frontman, he's a hard-working, compassionate soul who's as revered and respected by New Yorkers as he is in Guangzhou.

He's an instantly recognisable figure with global cachet and, according to Brook Larmer, much more besides. Larmer claims that Yao's parents - both tall, former members of the national basketball teams - were strongly encouraged by the authorities to marry, with the aim of producing an outstanding athlete and bringing glory to the mainland.

In Operation Yao Ming, Larmer painstakingly recounts how Yao was, in effect, created. His tone is unyielding. There's little ambiguity in his thesis.

He describes how Yao's birth was met with muted approval by his de facto creators, the Shanghai Sports Commission. 'Perched in their fortress-like headquarters next to People's Square - a prime location that reflected their privileged position in the Communist hierarchy - the bureaucrats in their Mao suits greeted the news with satisfaction, if not surprise,' Larmer writes. 'It was these men and women, after all, who had been trying to cultivate a new generation of athletes who could embody the rising power of China. The boy in the maternity ward was the culmination of their plan.'