With baseball being big in other parts of East Asia–Korea, Japan and Taiwan in particular, it wouldn’t take a great leap to assume it was big in China as well.

Not so.  Chairman Mao apparently championed basketball as the worker’s sport.  Baseball was a capitalist machination. 

Read about the attempt to introduce America’s Pastime to the Middle Kingdom: Baseball in China: Striking out | The Economist.

Smaktakula