Several years back, I think I read somewhere that the People's Army in China had adopted Rugby as one of their Official Sports.
At last count the Chinese Army was around 1m strong to the nearest 100,000 soldiers. If only a small % of the Army play rugby, that would still be an impressive number of players.
Hugh,
I moved to Hong Kong in the mid seventies to work. Back then, China was still, comparatively, a backwater. It was virtually closed to tourism and foreign commerce. A lot has changed since then.
One thing that has not changed is that a lot of people still look at China and assume that, because the population is huge, commercial success is almost guaranteed. "We only have to sell one pair of shoes to 1% of the population". I would love a quid for every time I have heard or read something along those lines.
Unfortunately it does not work like that. The vast majority of foreign ventures fail.
Maybe rugby will succeed as a professional sport. But it it does it will not be because of the numbers. Look at New Zealand.