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Came across this on the Guinness World Records site.
I belive that Israel has also made it the main sport of their military as well.
With the current preocupation by the Chinese to not just be a huge country and population, but to also be seen to be "great" on the world stage, I will be suprised if there is not a rapid ride up the IRB ladder from 39th in a couple of years time.
Currently China give their senior male player figure at 2600, even if 0.1% play on they will have almost doubled their numbers to put them in front of the likes of Tonga.
It would be safe to assume that the Chinese Government and Military will "encourage" a far greater percentage than that to play on for the pride of their country.
Rugby is now the official sport of the Chinese Army. The Chinese asked the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) to help them establish the sport by providing rugby coaches to travel to China to teach the soldiers - all 2.5 million of them! When NZRFU officials asked how many coaches were needed, the answer was 10,000 - which is many more coaches than New Zealand has!