For a long time, many countries have naturalized outstanding athletes from other countries to make up for their own weaknesses. Our neighboring country, Japan, has also naturalized many athletes in our country’s advantageous sports. In recent years, Japan has poached many Chinese athletes. It is understandable that outstanding athletes seek refuge in other countries in order to pursue their own development. However, due to historical reasons, many Chinese people are often disappointed with those athletes who defect to Japan. Today, let’s take a look at the Chinese faces who have become Japanese citizens.
Ren Yanli, female, captain of the Chinese softball team in the 1980s. After joining Japan (Japanese name Utsuki Reika), she served as captain of the Japanese women's softball team and coached the Japanese Women's Softball League Takasaki team. In 2011, she was selected by the Japan Softball Association. , became the new Japanese women’s softball coach. It is worth mentioning that Ren Yanli's father was a veteran of the Anti-Japanese War. He hated his daughter's choice and did not forgive her until his death.
He Zhili, born in Shanghai in September 1964, was a former female table tennis player. She later married a Japanese and became a Japanese national. She changed her name to Xiaoshan Zhili . He has represented the Chinese team and won many world championships. However, she felt aggrieved after encountering the "handicap incident" and married away to Japan. She became a citizen of that country and represented the Japanese team in defeating her former national table tennis teammates many times in world-class competitions.
Li Mingyang , whose Japanese name is Miyuki Sugiyama, was born in Jilin in June 1994. He is 1.96 meters tall. In the 2010 U17 Women's Basketball World Youth Championship, the Chinese National Youth Women's Basketball Team won the bronze medal. Li Mingyang served as the team's main inside line. In October 2010, after Li Mingyang left Beijing Shougang Club on the grounds of taking time off for medical treatment, her teammates confirmed that she had been recruited by a Japanese club to play in Japan. Although this is not the first case in the sports world for Chinese athletes to become naturalized or take on the nationality of another country, the fact that they quietly changed their nationality on the grounds of sick leave has aroused a lot of attention.
Zhang Benzhi and are Chinese and Japanese. Both his parents were former table tennis players of the Sichuan team. He was born in Sendai, , and his parents came to live in Japan in 1998. In March 2014, he, his father Yu, sister Miwa and three other people were naturalized in Japan (formally became Japanese nationals), and changed their original surname "Zhang" to the Japanese surname "Zhang Ben". He is currently an athlete of the Japanese table tennis men's national team.
Zhang Tianjie , Japanese name Zhang Bentianjie , was born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province in January 1992. He was naturalized in Aichi Prefecture, Japan from high school. He graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan. He is a Japanese professional basketball player and forward. He plays for Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Dolphins Nagoya. In 2008, Zhang Tianjie represented Japan in the 2008 Asian Youth Championship and became the first Chinese men's basketball player to be naturalized by the Japanese national team.
