Role Underplayed: Research on the Weakening Function of the All-China Sports Federation from a Historical Perspective

The All-China Sports Federation (ACSF) is a national sports organization in People's Republic of China (PRC), which oversees a wide array of sports associations in the country. After a transient independent management, the ACSF was taken over by the State Physical Culture and Sports Commission (SPCSC), and became all but a shadow federation with its systematic and mechanical power centralized, and its function waning. The influence of the ACSF has not been strengthened until now, which is the main reason why the institutional reform of sport in PRC is somewhat slow. Literature review, logic analysis and historical approach are adopted in the study. Taking the ACSF as the research object, the study elaborates on its development history, especially on that of its predecessor, preparation stage and establishment, to explore the historical evolvement of its weakening function. The reasons for the functional weakening of the ACSF include four points: with its executive power gradually taken over by the SPCSC as the internal reason, severed relations with the International Olympic Committee as the external reason, proposing and implementing the policy of ‘cutting the tedium to guarantee the priority’ as the policy reason, and the strategy of a state-run sports system as the institutional reason.