School students from the ethnic group are hoping they can help China achieve its goal of becoming a major global player by 2050. Liu Xin reports for China Features.

As a torrential downpour unloaded on a Beijing soccer field on a summer day, a group of boys from the Uygur ethnic group played on. Their coach, Parhat Mamtemin, called in vain for them to come in from the rain. "They take no notice," he said, with a sigh.

The team, from Moyu county, Hotan prefecture, in the south of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has just completed a national youth soccer tournament in Jinzhou in the northeastern province of Liaoning.