Snooker is fast becoming one of the strongest sporting bridges between China and the UK.

Jason Ferguson - Chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association - was recently in China as part of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's state visit, underlining the sport's growing role in people-to-people exchanges.

In an exclusive interview, Ferguson told CGTN correspondent Li Jianhua how China was playing a pivotal role in connecting people around the world and why the country had fallen in love with the sport. 

"We've fought really hard to develop snooker as an international sport and I do feel that that respect was given to our sport and particularly with our growth in China," said Ferguson in Sheffield, the city where the sport's World Championship is played every year at the Crucible.

"We've got a number of things in the pipeline, we've got extensions on existing events in the pipelines, we have a new event coming as well, so there are deals being done all the time. Our sport is just getting bigger and bigger."

How has the sport's power boosted relations between China and the UK?

Ferguson added: "I think it makes a huge contribution. Sport is one of the unique bridges of the world. We often talk about the Olympics, the IOC and the Olympic Charter and the mythology behind that. 

"Our individual sports are really connected, our fans are connected, our players are connected with their counterparts around the world. 

"When I first started working I was still a snooker player, I was running the governing body as a volunteer with a group of other people. At that time China was growing, its interest was growing in snooker and I remember a very young player who became one of the first students at our academy which was at the time in Bangkok in Thailand, which was really the only strong nation in Asia for playing snookering. 

"That young player was Ding Junhui and the rest is history. He went through the system, he came to Sheffield, he was based in this city for a while, and as that young student became the national hero."

Ding Junhui now owns an academy in Sheffield where several high-flying stars from China are training, including World No 1 and reigning world champion Bai Yulu. China can now also boast the talent of Zhao Xintong who became the first Chinese male to win the World Championship last May.

History for China

This weekend history was made with four Chinese players making up the semi-finalists at a ranking event for the first time ever with Zhao Xintong, Zhou Yuelong, Zhang Anda and Xiao Guodong competing at the World Grand Prix. 

Ferguson, who visits China regularly to help promote the sport and attend the five ranking events taking place there, outlined the difficulties in mastering snooker and why the Chinese adore it. 

"It is a very interesting sport. It has extreme technical skill which has to be mastered," he said. "It is also extremely demanding mentally and it has its own style and etiquette. It's very old English but of course I think China fell in love with it. 

"Based on the extreme skill and the mental strength, there are so many aspects of snooker I could talk about forever, but they're the three really basic things that China fell in love with."