Sport in China Defeats of the national team to Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea may help change the trend as Chinese become more aware of the game's internationalization. American football leagues such as the American Football League of China and the China Arena Football League have been launched in recent years. China will host the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The game was introduced to China by American YMCA workers in 1896, just five years after Canadian-American James Naismith invented basketball in 1891 while working for the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Since Yao Ming's 2002 arrival in the NBA,
James Naismith (chemist) investigates: His research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust and the European Union. Naismith was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. His nomination reads: Naismith is also Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and in 2016 was elected a Fellow of the American Association