Why read this: This BBC News feature gives Mandarin-L1 readers a chance to read an English business profile that sits on the C1/C2 boundary while drawing on a story they already know — China's late-1980s economic opening and the rise of its export manufacturers. The article uses Anta's growth into a global sportswear contender as a case through which students meet the working vocabulary of brand strategy, supply-chain economics and Sino-Western politics. Because the cultural schema is familiar, attention can be spent on the language: dense British-journalism idiom, nominalised strategy terms, and the implicit-contrast moves that carry the writer's argument. For graded reading, it is a productive piece — readers come away with a defensible opinion about whether Anta really stands a chance against Nike, and with a sharper ear for how feature journalism builds that case.
What to notice: Three pinch points repay close reading. First, idiom and phrasal-verb density: 'take on,' 'spell out,' 'stand out,' 'go on to,' 'eye markets,' 'toe the line,' 'home turf,' 'zero-sum game.' Several appear with senses that diverge sharply from the literal — students who read only the surface will miss the argumentative spine. Second, the heavy nominalisation of business-strategy passages — 'controlling stake,' 'multi-brand strategy,' 'perception challenge,' 'market share' — where verb-driven Chinese habits do not transfer cleanly. Third, the implicit-contrast structure: Anta's 12,000 China shops set against Nike's 1,000 worldwide; Anta's celebrity signings set against Nike's Jordan deal; Eileen Gu's 'polarising' status set against the unspoken political stakes. These contrasts are never spelled out for the reader, who is trusted to compute them.
Skills practised: Readers practise tracking a non-linear chronology that jumps among the late 1980s, 1991, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2019 and the present, while holding a single referent ('the company,' 'the firm,' 'the brand') across shifting noun phrases. They practise resolving multi-source attribution — Fei Qin, Wei Kan, the Anta spokesperson — without explicit signposting, and weighing each voice's credibility. They practise reading for argument rather than fact: distinguishing what the article asserts from what it implies, and noticing where it hedges with 'may,' 'could,' or 'tends to.' Vocabulary work centres on idiomatic phrasal verbs, business-strategy nominalisations, and the cultural-political subtext of phrases like 'made in China.' The comprehension questions push readers from inference into argument construction, which is the C1 cognitive move.
"The Chinese sports brand taking on Nike and Adidas"
"How a high school dropout with 600 pairs of shoes built a sportswear empire to rival the West"
Tap any green word in the article to see its meaning.
In the late 1980s, when China's economy was just beginning to open, a determined high-school dropout named Ding Shizhong loaded 600 pairs of shoes onto a train to Beijing. The shoes had been made in a relative's factory, and the seventeen-year-old planned to sell every last pair. The proceeds bankrolled his first workshop. Ding became one of China's many entrepreneurs, building a fledgling business as capitalism took off under the of the Communist Party.
Four decades on, that workshop has matured into Anta — a sportswear powerhouse that, as the largest shareholder of Amer Sports, oversees a stable of international brands including Arc'teryx and Salomon. This year it bought a 29% stake in Puma. Now Anta is trying to take on Nike and Adidas — an ambition Ding in 2005: "We don't want to be the Nike of China, but the Anta of the world."
Anta is not yet a in the West, but it operates more than 12,000 shops across China and sponsors top athletes such as freestyle skier Eileen Gu. In February it opened its first US outlet — a flagship store in upscale Beverly Hills. The push abroad arrives as Donald Trump pursues tariffs to revive American manufacturing, underscoring just how essential and competitive Chinese have become.
Anta's rise — its name means "safe steps" — is not unique. Decades of being the world's factory have allowed several ambitious Chinese firms to challenge the very brands they once supplied. Founded in 1991, Anta began far from the of Beverly Hills, in Jinjiang, a coastal city in Fujian. Once a quiet agricultural county, Jinjiang became the of the world, swollen by an from seeking overseas factories that could production costs.
Foreign customers with these eastern-coast hubs, where suppliers of laces, soles, fabric and logistics firms clustered together. By 2005, Fujian alone produced nearly a fifth of the world's shoes. The country reaped more than income, says University of Bath associate professor Fei Qin: "They learned not only how to make more, but how to produce better, faster and more consistently."
It was on these streets that Anta grew. While churning out shoes in bulk for Western labels, the company quietly worked at at home, opening retail outlets and partnering with national basketball and table tennis competitions. In 2007 it listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising HKD3.5bn — a record then for a Chinese sports company. Branding consultant Wei Kan recalls that Anta for its , which let it design and sell faster than rivals.
Firms that begin as subcontractors, Kan argues, naturally bigger things. Xiaomi started as an Android customiser before making phones and electric vehicles; DJI built camera gear before dominating consumer drones; BYD supplied batteries to Tesla before becoming the world's top EV manufacturer. Anta is now in the West, with more than 460 outlets abroad and plans for 1,000 across South East Asia within three years — even though Nike still leads on global .
beyond China brings a familiar perception challenge: Chinese products are still often dismissed as cheap or . Anta's answer is what it calls a . It bought the rights to Fila in China in 2009, then in 2019 took a in Finland's Amer Sports, gaining Arc'teryx, Salomon and Wilson — whose tennis balls are used in NBA arenas. Such acquisitions let Anta sidestep buyers who may be wary of a brand and reach them through trusted Western labels.
Celebrity sponsorships remain another hurdle. Nike's with Michael Jordan in the 1980s redefined sneaker culture; Anta has signed Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving but no comparable cultural coup. Being a Chinese brand also carries political baggage. Anta Eileen Gu became a when her decision to represent China at the Olympics . Companies that grow this large, Kan adds, must learn to between Beijing and the West.
Anta's timing, however, looks favourable. Nike is fighting to revive sales since its backfired post-Covid, and demand inside China has slowed too. "The question isn't whether Anta will ," one analyst observes. "It's whether competitors can adapt quickly enough to defend their ." An Anta spokesperson is more measured: "The global sportswear landscape is not a . We're confident sports lovers will recognise Anta's innovations and brand value."
In the late 1980s, when China's economy was just beginning to open, a determined high-school dropout named Ding Shizhong loaded 600 pairs of shoes onto a train to Beijing. The shoes had been made in a relative's factory, and the seventeen-year-old planned to sell every last pair. The proceeds bankrolled his first workshop. Ding became one of China's many entrepreneurs, building a fledgling business as capitalism took off under the of the Communist Party.
Four decades on, that workshop has matured into Anta — a sportswear powerhouse that, as the largest shareholder of Amer Sports, oversees a stable of international brands including Arc'teryx and Salomon. This year it bought a 29% stake in Puma. Now Anta is trying to take on Nike and Adidas — an ambition Ding in 2005: "We don't want to be the Nike of China, but the Anta of the world."
Anta is not yet a in the West, but it operates more than 12,000 shops across China and sponsors top athletes such as freestyle skier Eileen Gu. In February it opened its first US outlet — a flagship store in upscale Beverly Hills. The push abroad arrives as Donald Trump pursues tariffs to revive American manufacturing, underscoring just how essential and competitive Chinese have become.
Anta's rise — its name means "safe steps" — is not unique. Decades of being the world's factory have allowed several ambitious Chinese firms to challenge the very brands they once supplied. Founded in 1991, Anta began far from the of Beverly Hills, in Jinjiang, a coastal city in Fujian. Once a quiet agricultural county, Jinjiang became the of the world, swollen by an from seeking overseas factories that could production costs.
Foreign customers with these eastern-coast hubs, where suppliers of laces, soles, fabric and logistics firms clustered together. By 2005, Fujian alone produced nearly a fifth of the world's shoes. The country reaped more than income, says University of Bath associate professor Fei Qin: "They learned not only how to make more, but how to produce better, faster and more consistently."
It was on these streets that Anta grew. While churning out shoes in bulk for Western labels, the company quietly worked at at home, opening retail outlets and partnering with national basketball and table tennis competitions. In 2007 it listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising HKD3.5bn — a record then for a Chinese sports company. Branding consultant Wei Kan recalls that Anta for its , which let it design and sell faster than rivals.
Firms that begin as subcontractors, Kan argues, naturally bigger things. Xiaomi started as an Android customiser before making phones and electric vehicles; DJI built camera gear before dominating consumer drones; BYD supplied batteries to Tesla before becoming the world's top EV manufacturer. Anta is now in the West, with more than 460 outlets abroad and plans for 1,000 across South East Asia within three years — even though Nike still leads on global .
beyond China brings a familiar perception challenge: Chinese products are still often dismissed as cheap or . Anta's answer is what it calls a . It bought the rights to Fila in China in 2009, then in 2019 took a in Finland's Amer Sports, gaining Arc'teryx, Salomon and Wilson — whose tennis balls are used in NBA arenas. Such acquisitions let Anta sidestep buyers who may be wary of a brand and reach them through trusted Western labels.
Celebrity sponsorships remain another hurdle. Nike's with Michael Jordan in the 1980s redefined sneaker culture; Anta has signed Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving but no comparable cultural coup. Being a Chinese brand also carries political baggage. Anta Eileen Gu became a when her decision to represent China at the Olympics . Companies that grow this large, Kan adds, must learn to between Beijing and the West.
Anta's timing, however, looks favourable. Nike is fighting to revive sales since its backfired post-Covid, and demand inside China has slowed too. "The question isn't whether Anta will ," one analyst observes. "It's whether competitors can adapt quickly enough to defend their ." An Anta spokesperson is more measured: "The global sportswear landscape is not a . We're confident sports lovers will recognise Anta's innovations and brand value."
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
Which of the following best captures the article's overall argument about Anta's global push?
- 02
Why does the article devote substantial space to Jinjiang and the eastern-coast clusters before returning to Anta itself?
- 03
What is the most defensible inference about Anta's multi-brand strategy from the evidence presented?
- 04
Argue whether Anta's multi-brand strategy is a strength or a vulnerability in its bid to rival Nike and Adidas. Use at least three specific pieces of evidence from the article in your answer.
Suggested length: ~100 words
- 05
Assess the claim that Anta is in 'a favourable position abroad.' What evidence does the article supply, and what important counter-evidence does it leave under-examined?
Suggested length: ~100 words
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
Which of the following best captures the article's overall argument about Anta's global push?
- 02
Why does the article devote substantial space to Jinjiang and the eastern-coast clusters before returning to Anta itself?
- 03
What is the most defensible inference about Anta's multi-brand strategy from the evidence presented?
- 04
Argue whether Anta's multi-brand strategy is a strength or a vulnerability in its bid to rival Nike and Adidas. Use at least three specific pieces of evidence from the article in your answer.
Suggested length: ~100 words
- 05
Assess the claim that Anta is in 'a favourable position abroad.' What evidence does the article supply, and what important counter-evidence does it leave under-examined?
Suggested length: ~100 words