Major honours
Chinese volleyball is effectively the history of its women's team. Coached by Yuan Weimin and led by 'Iron Hammer' Lang Ping, the national team won the 1981 World Cup, 1982 World Championship, 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, 1985 World Cup and 1986 World Championship in succession, a run known in China as the 'Five Consecutive Championships,' and it became one of the rare instances in early reform-era China where sport carried the weight of national sentiment. After a decline, the team revived with the 2003 World Cup and 2004 Athens Olympics, and when Lang Ping took over as head coach again in 2013, she led a second golden era through the 2015 World Cup, 2016 Rio Olympic gold and 2019 World Cup. Zhu Ting, named tournament MVP at Rio, is the symbol of this era. The men's team has never won an Olympic medal and carries little weight internationally, but the women alone have stacked up 3 Olympic golds and 5 World Cups, enough to place this program near the top of this list.
Record comparison
Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.
Club legends
Rivalry
The United States, met in the 1984 Los Angeles final and the 2016 Rio semifinal, is the oldest rival, and Lang Ping coaching the American team against China at Beijing in 2008 was a strange peak of that rivalry. Within Asia, matches against Japan have always been the biggest draw.