On November 6th, 2021, students of Chinese universities rampaged through the streets in their pajamas on a snowy night as deafening screams of celebration echoed across dorm buildings. You would be forgiven to guess that there was a nationwide cancellation of final exams; or perhaps, in an even more unlikely scenario, the Chinese soccer team made it to the World Cup. However, the truth is that EDward Gaming (EDG), a Chinese esports team, had just won the most important tournament of the year: the League of Legends World Championship. For the Chinese community, League of Legends esports is more than just a competitive scene for a children’s computer game; it is a reflection of the nationalist tendencies of Chinese citizens.
League of Legends (LoL) is a video game made by developing company Riot Games that attracts over 130 million active users every month, 70 million of which are from China. LoL also has the largest esports scene in the world, with tournaments that peak at over six million concurrent viewers, not including Chinese viewership. In China, these numbers are even crazier. LoL esports has over 15 million subscribers on Bilibili and over 17 million subscribers on Huya, China’s two largest video streaming platforms.
Clearly, League of Legends and the attached esports scene are incredibly popular in China. However, to explain what they have to do with Chinese nationalism, we must dive deeper into the history of LoL esports. League of Legends esports began in 2011 when the European team Fnatic won the first world championship. A Taiwanese team, Taipei Assassins, won the second world championship in 2012. Afterwards, every single world championship up to 2018 was won by a Korean team. Despite having a much smaller player base than China, Korea is by far the most dominant region in LoL, with Korean teams having won nine world championships and Chinese teams having won only three. Even among the three world championship Chinese teams, Invictus Gaming (iG), FunPlus Phoenix (FPX), and EDG, there have always been at least two imports, a technical term referring to players who compete in a region different from their country of origin. Without exception, these imports have been Korean.
Ever since Korean teams started dominating the world championships while Chinese teams came at a distant second, a sharp anti-Korean sentiment arose in the Chinese esports community. This phenomenon is quite curious because the League of Legends World Championship is not a competition between different regions but individual teams. However, the Chinese community’s sentiment is not against a specific team but Korea in general. A common term within the Chinese esports community is “抗韩” (kang han), literally meaning anti-Korean. It is common for Chinese fans to specifically track how different Chinese teams do against Korean teams, with several teams that do especially well against Korean teams being dubbed “抗韩先锋,” (kang han xian feng) literally meaning anti-Korean frontline. Even Riot Games has noticed this rivalry and organized Rift Rivals, which pits regions against each other. Therefore, it is apparent that Chinese fans have derived a national rivalry from something with no direct national implications.
This anti-Korean sentiment is even present when distinguishing between Chinese teams. Within the Chinese fandom, there is a general consensus that a “全华班,” or an all-Chinese team, is preferred over a team with Korean imports. Some particularly toxic netizens (a term describing habitual users of the internet) have even used crude and racist terms to describe teams with Korean imports in earlier years when importing players was not as common. However, even disregarding these particularly toxic fans, it is still clear that the broader Chinese community prefers fully Chinese teams. When EDG won the 2015 Mid Season Invitational (MSI), the second most prestigious international tournament of the year, and beat a Korean team in the finals to do so, the Chinese LoL community cheered with approval. However, it paled in comparison to the roar of pride that the Royal Never Give Up (RNG) team received when they won the 2018 MSI. Even state-owned media outlets such as the China Daily posted about RNG’s win. What’s the difference between the two teams? Two of the five players from EDG’s MSI-winning roster were Korean, and RNG’s 2018 roster was exclusively Chinese. To be more precise, the Chinese community perceived RNG’s 2018 roster as exclusively Chinese; Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan, a member of 2018 RNG, is actually Taiwanese. However, since almost all Chinese citizens consider Taiwan to be part of China, RNG’s 2018 roster was still considered an all-Chinese team.
This sentiment persists today despite most Chinese League of Legends teams having Korean imports. A few months ago, on November 2nd, 2024, Bilibili Gaming (BLG) advanced to the 2024 League of Legends World Championship finals. Chinese media quickly pointed out that they were the first all-Chinese team to make it to the finals of a world championship since Royal Club (RYL) in 2013. This way of framing BLG’s advancement implies that an all-Chinese team is still important to Chinese audiences. Indeed, over 43 million Chinese fans, approximately 86% of the worldwide viewership, watched the 2024 world finals. In the 2020 LoL World Championship, another Chinese team, Suning Gaming (SN), advanced to the finals and lost. However, they were not an all-Chinese team, and only 38 million Chinese fans (assuming that Chinese fans consist of 86% of the viewer base) watched the 2020 world finals.
It is clear that for the Chinese community, despite competitive League of Legends revolving around specific teams rather than regions, League of Legends esports still carries deep nationalist implications for China. However, it is worth noting that the intrigue of an all-Chinese team has been slowly disappearing. Chinese LoL influencers have been discussing the future of a fully Chinese team, suggesting fans no longer blindly support all-Chinese teams without tangible achievements. As a direct reaction to this sentiment, many prominent teams that have advertised the all-Chinese brand signed Korean players to bolster their roster. Team Oh My God (OMG), a Chinese team that has never had any imports since its inception in 2012, decided to sign Jeong “Moham” Jae-hun, a Korean import. More notably, Top Esports (TES), a perennial contender for the World Championship that has not had an import since 2022, signed Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok, a Korean import.
The continued fascination of the all-Chinese team highlights the role of nationalism within LoL. Despite League of Legends esports being centered around individual teams, the Chinese community still focuses on the national rivalry against Korea, demonstrating just how deep nationalistic sentiments run within Chinese society. However, this sentiment is evolving, namely in the form of the Chinese LoL community shifting away from blindly supporting all-Chinese teams, leading to perennial fully-Chinese teams signing Korean players and forgoing romantic ideals for practical results. Ultimately, this signals a return to a fundamental truth of competitive sports: winning is all that matters. Or, to use a common Chinese phrase: 竞技体育，成绩说话 (in competitive sports, the results do the talking).
Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Edward Gaming winners of 2015 League of Legends Mid-Year Invitational | Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons | CC License, no changes made
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