Kobe’s Next Conquest: China

One of the great curiosities in modern sports is the Chinese people’s lavish affection for Kobe Bryant. During last year’s Beijing Olympics, he was greeted with a rapturous reception and mobbed everywhere he went. He appears in commercials and on billboards, has a popular Web site and had a reality show on Chinese television. He sells more NBA jerseys there than Yao Ming.

On Tuesday in Los Angeles, the love affair will reach a new level. Not only is Mr. Bryant accepting an award from the Asia Society for his work as a “cultural ambassador,” the ceremony will be attended by Liu Peng, China’s “Minister of Sport” and a member of China’s Communist Party Central Committee.

China’s embrace is largely an appreciation of Mr. Bryant’s basketball talent—he won his fourth NBA title earlier this month with the Los Angeles Lakers. “He reminds everyone of Michael Jordan,” says Shen Zhiyu, a senior basketball writer for Titan Sports, China’s largest sports daily.

But it is also a reflection of a deliberate campaign by Mr. Bryant to make inroads in the world’s most-populous country. In addition to his frequent visits to China (a planned trip in late July will be his fourth in as many years) and his considerable work on behalf of sponsor Nike, he’s assuming another identity: philanthropist.

In an attempt to tap into the Chinese government’s growing interest in promoting charity, Mr. Bryant is establishing the Kobe Bryant China Fund. The organization will partner with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government, to raise money within China earmarked for education and health programs. Mr. Bryant’s existing fund, the Kobe Bryant Family Foundation, will also work to strengthen ties between the two countries by teaching middle-school students in the U.S. about Chinese language and culture. Mr. Bryant declined to say how much he is donating to the fund.

“At the elite level, China and the U.S. have already connected, but there is no grass-roots connection,” says Donald Tang, who is the founder and CEO of financial advisory firm CITIC Securities International Partners. Mr. Tang, who will help guide Mr. Bryant’s China fund, says the athlete’s popularity can help forge that connection. “I think he can be a one-man State Department, reaching directly to the people.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Bryant will accept an award from the Asia Society for his work in building cultural bridges to the country.

Mr. Bryant is the rare American star athlete with international credentials. He spent much of his childhood in Italy where his father, Joe Bryant, played professional basketball. He speaks Italian and Spanish. “I have a curiosity about other cultures and an openness to them, as a result of growing up overseas,” he says.

Mr. Bryant’s public image is not spotless. He has squabbled publicly with former teammate Shaquille O’Neal and drawn fire for his tactics in contract talks. In 2003, authorities in Colorado charged him with sexual assault. Mr. Bryant admitted having sex with his accuser but insisted it was consensual. The case was dismissed after his accuser declined to testify against him. A civil suit was settled out of court.

In China, none of that seems to matter. Terry Rhoads, the American managing director of Zou Marketing, a Shanghai sports consultancy who steered Nike’s entry into China, says Mr. Bryant seems to have a solid sense of how to navigate in the country. “Chinese fans adore Kobe on the court, but they also want to see affection for Chinese culture and people,” Mr. Rhoads says. “The more time he spends in China, the more he will endear himself to millions of basketball-loving Chinese.”

Mr. Rhoads says Mr. Bryant’s charitable initiative could have a profound impact on a nation that is just developing a culture of individual charitable efforts. After last year’s devastating earthquake in Sichuan, Mr. Yao personally donated about $293,000 and took donations from other NBA players. When Sichuan native Zhen Jie, a tennis player, made it to the semifinals of last year’s Wimbledon women’s singles draw, she donated her prize money to earthquake relief. These efforts were well received in China. The government seems to hope that philanthropy by athletes and other celebrities will encourage newly prosperous entrepreneurs to give money as well.

Mr. Bryant’s U.S.-focused Kobe Bryant Family Foundation, which has sponsored after-school programs in Los Angeles for several years. It will pay the salaries of four teachers who, beginning this fall, will teach Mandarin and Chinese culture to middle-school students.

“I want to help these kids see the possibilities of China and just understand that the world is much, much bigger than what they see around them,” Mr. Bryant says. “It helps show them that anything is possible and they should not be afraid to dream big. You’re not just locked in to one city.”

Mr. Bryant’s growing profile in China is good news for his sponsors and also for basketball, which has emerged as one of the country’s favorite sports. Nike has made significant investments in the country. With sales exceeding $1 billion, Nike says China is its second-largest market outside the U.S.

Sports have always played a large role in bridging between China and the outside world. Most famously, the “ping-pong diplomacy” of the early ’70s saw Chinese and American table-tennis teams compete against one another as a precursor to a thaw between the nations. The spectacle of the Beijing Olympics last year was China’s greatest-ever turn on the world stage. “China began promoting sports in this era because it was one of the few diplomatic channels open to it,” says Susan Brownell, an American professor who recently completed two years at Beijing Sport University’s Olympic Studies Centre.

Also, she says, a large part of Chinese public life consists of ceremonies and symbols rather than public debate. “Sports serve this function now because of their largely non-verbal character,” she says.