When it comes to individual success, China can appear to be an unstoppable sporting machine at times, from dominating table tennis, to training divers to enter the water without a splash and weightlifters to shatter world records. But translate that same state-led sports model onto a football pitch, basketball court, and latterly volleyball court, and the system stumbles. In a year when China’s men again watched on as others played in an expanded Fifa World Cup, an economist and a sports...