a humiliating 7-0 loss to World Cup rivals Japan
Uuuh. Maybe China considers Japan a rival, but Japan wouldn’t consider China at all. If an actual world-class team like Japan has a rival, it would be Korea. Both teams obviously well above China in rankings.
You could consider Australia a rival, but honestly the two countries and the fans love each other too much.
Yeah. Japan’s usually going to be number 1 in Asia, but we all go for whoever of those three teams is still in and usually two of them are in the WC. China’s just insignificant. I think even NZ is higher than them and they’re a low-population nation obsessed with rugby.