The Chinese also have the advantage of being fully focused on the national team environment, while the rest of the world is forced to alternate between club and national sides in order to make a living from the sport.

They also enjoy the best facilities, the best methods and the best coaches, with the men and women's national teams led by Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui, men's singles Olympic champions at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 respectively.

The best comparison with this is the dominance of East African athletes in distance running. For a variety of climatic, socio-economic and cultural reasons, athletes from places like Ethiopia and Kenya have dominated road, track and cross country running in terms of medals and times over recent decades.

The dominance of East African distant runners is the best sporting comparison with China in table tennis ©AFP/Getty Images



Like with the Chinese in table tennis, there has also been a tendency for teams from other parts of the world to be littered with African runners who have switched nationality.

But there are also differences between the two.

While the African runners are superior there is nothing to stop other athletes moving there to emulate their methods and lifestyle. Athletes from the rest of the world can also have other advantages, such as funding, technology and tactical nous. All of this has been illustrated when runners who did not start running in Africa have got the better of them, such as Britons Mo Farah and Paula Ratcliffe and the US winner of the Boston Marathon last weekend Meb Keflezighi.

In table tennis the rest of the world has no such advantage, as the Chinese system remains generally closed to everyone else, and they also have the best technology and are, invariably, the most mentally and tactically adept, despite the huge pressure they have to deal with.

So what can be done about this? The general European response, and one suggested by Sharara and the ITTF in the past, is to focus on targeting younger age groups in order to perfect all-important technique at a younger age and thus develop a wider pool of talent from which players are selected.

But, although important, this is not enough to upset the balance of power.

Time and time again, in countries like Britain and France you see young players almost matching the best Chinese at youth and junior level, but failing to make the breakthrough to senior stardom and sometimes dropping out of the sport altogether. So for me, it is equally as important to target the late-teen and early 20s age groups in order to bring players from the cusp of elite level to world class stature.

I would also slightly refute Sharara's claim to insidethegames that the changes introduced under his Presidency have always made the sport more exciting. For changes in the size of the ball and in racquets have also made the sport faster, and therefore more one-dimensional with shorter rallies and less discrepancy between styles.

So in the modern game, the way to beat the Chinese is not by creating new styles of players but by emulating the all-out-attack format that they have perfected.

In other words, a strategy of if you can't beat them, join them.

This will be easier said than done because, whatever effort is made, the Chinese will naturally be reluctant to give much away about their training methods. But the rest-of-the-world should still try and learn as much as possible and take any opportunity to play in China, as those which have occasionally challenged them, like Timo Boll of Germany, have done.

This is also a way for western players to raise their profile commercially in a potentially lucrative Chinese market.

Former world number one Timo Boll won a world bronze medal in 2011 and is one of the few players to have occasionally upset the Chinese in recent years
©Bongarts/Getty Images



The final question concerns whether Chinese domination matters? And as Sharara claims, does this harm the sport?

Certainly, Chinese sportspeople tend to be less individual than international ones. I am currently reading the highly entertaining autobiography of Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović and I doubt the personality he has exhibited throughout his career would be tolerated to the same degree in the China system. Staying with football, the pulsating three-way contests currently ongoing for both the English Premier League and La Liga titles also shows how increased competition and unpredictability deems sport that much more exciting.

Yet, as Chinese players gradually master foreign languages, their personalities will emerge and there remains plenty of excitement within the game. Rivalries between the Chinese will become more exciting and, like with Singapore in 2010, we will have individual occasions if not sustained periods when Chinese dominance is overturned.

So while Chinese dominance is a concern, it is a reality which will not go away anytime soon, and I would advise Adham Sharara and the ITTF to seek ways to work with this reality for the improvement of the global game, rather than working against it.

Nick Butler is a reporter for insidethegames who used to play table tennis at a very modest standard. To follow him on Twitter click here.