Topping both the gold and overall medal tables for the first time, China gave its best-ever performance at The World Games in Chengdu, officials of the Chinese delegation announced on Sunday.
China's 321 athletes competed in 152 events across 28 sports, capturing 36 gold, 17 silver and 11 bronze medals. The tally marks the country's best record since it began participating in The World Games, said Zhang Xin, deputy head of the delegation, at a press conference.
Held from Aug. 7 to 17 under the slogan "Boundless Sports, Countless Wonders," this year's Games was the first to take place on the Chinese mainland. China sent a 489-member delegation, its largest in the event's history.
Of the 36 gold medals, China secured 17 golds in traditional World Games events such as wushu, finswimming, trampoline, aerobics, sport climbing and billiards.
In new Olympic sports such as squash and flag football, Chinese athletes gained a lot of experience. In newer sports, the Chinese team also claimed gold medals in waterskiing, parkour, and breakdancing.
Chinese para-athletes earned five golds and one bronze across 10 events, making progress in disability sports.
"At this year's World Games, the number of events in which China won gold increased from 14 to 23. On the platform of the World Games, we realized the integrated and coordinated development of both Olympic and non-Olympic sports, while offering people more diverse options to engage in sports," said Zhang.
The World Games this year set participation and medal records, with 18 world records upset and athletes from 81 countries standing on the podium, the highest in the event's history.
China gives best show at World Games in Chengdu
China's development has never been a "threat" to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.
Some Western media and think tanks are peddling so-called "China Shock 2.0," saying that "China is achieving fast development in high-tech sectors such as renewable energy and AI and relies on foreign markets to absorb its overcapacity, thus reducing the market share of developed countries and sending more serious shock waves to the global economy compared with the era of traditional manufacture industry," while there are foreign commentators saying that the "China Shock 2.0" argument ignores the genuine innovation occurring within the Chinese industrial ecosystem and that Chinese export is the exact booster of the global economy that is needed in the turbulent period and more indispensable than ever.
Commenting on that, Lin said: "From the world's factory to the world's market and innovation powerhouse, China's development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the 'old three' of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide. China's green production capacity represented by the 'new three' of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels has bridged the gap between supply and demand in global green development and bolstered the global energy transition and low-carbon development. Moreover, China's high-tech products represented by the 'new new three' of robots, AI and innovative drugs have broken high-tech barriers and monopoly and enabled people in more countries to access affordable new technologies," said the spokesman.
"Openness and cooperation bring about progress and win-win result. China's development has never been a 'threat' to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates 'shocks' to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains. China will stay committed to high-standard opening up, defend the multilateral trading system and provide more certainty and new impetus to the world economy with its own steady development," said Lin.
China's development never a threat: FM spokesman
