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Representing the nation in sports mega events has become a highly contested issue with the acceleration of the transnational movement of athletes. This research has examined Chinese people's attitudes to the naturalization of football players. The article discusses the findings in the context of the qualifying stages for the 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup by presenting and analysing data collected from semi-structured interviews and social media extracts. Two main issues were debated by Chinese people concerning the identity of naturalized athletes. One was the ethnicity of the naturalized footballers in relation to nationality, with some people questioning whether they belong to China and can represent China. The other issue concerned the players' skills and ability which influenced considerations of how much they could help China to qualify for the World Cup Finals. In relation to Chinese nationalism, national identity and Chinese sports, this study reveals, through the window provided by the presence of these naturalized footballers, how football, instrumentalism, nationalism and naturalization have been inextricably linked and have interacted with one another within the current context. The article analyses how pragmatic values have negotiated with ethno-cultural nationalism and impacted on the Chinese public's attitudes towards naturalized athletes, their image being presented in variable and dynamic ways by football fan netizens after each qualifying game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Civil War split the Chinese into two politically conflicted states from 1949. The People's Republic of China and Republic of China both claimed to be the legitimate representative of China in the international community. "Chinese Taipei" has become the name of Republic of China in the international sport field and almost every international organization since 1981, after Kuomintang (The Chinese Nationalist Party) refused to play under the provincial name "Taiwan," which was suggested by the International Olympic Committee in the 1960s. However, the relationships between Taiwan and China and the nationalistic discourses have changed drastically in Taiwan in the past 40 years. "Chinese Taipei" became the compromised, shameful symbol of Republic of China. At the same time, "Taiwan" turned into the most progressive, resistant, and aspired but banned name and self-identity for many Taiwanese. In 2018, the "2020 Tokyo Olympics Taiwan Name Rectification Referendum" was launched. It requested to rectify the current "Chinese Taipei" to "Taiwan". This paper aims to build a contextualized and historical understanding of this interrelation of sport and nationalism in Taiwan via this name game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]