Chinese are taking over a traditionally Belgian bird-racing industry. Martin Banks looks at what is giving the sector new wings.

A Belgian bird called Bolt recently sold for a world-record price of 310,000 euros ($425,000) - the cost of a desirable residence in Brussels.

Named after Jamaica's Olympic gold-medal sprinter Usain Bolt, the racing pigeon was bought by a Chinese businessman at an auction held by the Belgian pigeon traders' association, Pigeon Paradise.

The sale is telling. If Belgium is regarded as the age-old breeding home of racing pigeons, then China is the new center of global demand. It is not only fine wines and luxury cars that the new class of wealthy Chinese is spending on.

But, as a source at the association points out, pigeons offer a huge investment advantage as a status symbol: "One bottle of wine remains one bottle, but a nice pigeon will have children and grandchildren."

What started as a working-class pastime across Belgium and Western Europe a century ago has become big business in China. Evidence of this emerged most recently in September, when Chinese customs officials impounded 1,600 racing pigeons, including the recently retired Bolt, bought by Chinese fanciers at the auction the association organized.

Each pigeon was declared at only 99 euros. Chinese import duties are levied at 10 percent of the value of goods, with an additional valued-added tax of 13 percent. That means China was owed 75,000 euros just for Bolt, not to mention the other birds.

Bolt was eventually released.

The import duties row highlights China's rapidly growing fascination with racing pigeons, especially those bred in Belgium. A couple of years ago, Chinese buyers acquired a 218-bird colony in Belgium for a world-record 1.3 million euros. And earlier this year, a Chinese industrialist paid 250,000 euros for a racing pigeon called Special Blue.

In the sport, specially bred and trained pigeons are released from a specific location and race back to their home loft. Because it would be too expensive to lose them, the top birds bought in Belgium typically don't race in China. But their offspring do.

"Belgian racing pigeons have a reputation as being the best in the world," says Martin Martens, the association's editorial and handling expert.

"Chinese fanciers are the biggest buyers of our national winners. They follow the national races closely and our ace birds are very famous in China. Every year, most of these transfer to China.

"So you could say that our pigeons have become as important an export product as Belgian beer, chocolate or chips."

The riches and glamour involved contrast with the sport's relatively humble beginnings.

Pigeon breeding and racing, which first took root in dynastic China, has become an income source, status symbol and hobby for the country's new rich. But its boom in China contrasts sharply with its relative decline in Belgium.

Sun Yang, deputy director of the Beijing Changping district racing pigeon association, says China is now home to at least 300,000 pigeon fanciers. One recent race in Beijing offered 23 million yuan ($3.8 million) in prize money.

China's pigeon federations' membership has soared over the past 12 to 15 years, and prices for top pigeons have increased up to threefold in 10 years, Martens says.

Its popularity in China is attributed in part to Gordon Chiu, one of the country's most talented fanciers. Chiu spent countless childhood hours with the pigeons his uncle kept on his Shanghai apartment's balcony.

Chiu has pursued the hobby with "unbridled enthusiasm" since the 1970s. In '79, he took part in the first super long-distance race, in which 581 pigeons set off from three provinces. Only 75 completed the epic 2,430-kilometer race. Chiu's pigeon was among them.

Chiu is one of the Chinese businessmen who've bought pigeons from Pigeon Paradise's auction house. That the company's website has a Chinese version signals the Chinese market's importance.

However, the downside to the "Chinese invasion" is that pigeon fanciers in Belgium are unable to compete with the high prices being paid.

At the recent second world pigeon fair in Kortrijk, Belgium, Frenchman Gilles Vanneuville complained: "It's daft. It's killing the sport. How do you expect a young person to start out?"

His concerns are shared by compatriot Marcel Candenir, who says: "I find it too expensive 200,000 euros for a pigeon is not a normal price."

Belgian breeders have also been facing thefts and racketeering.

Some, like Marc De Cock, who owns 600 pigeons in Temse, Belgium, have gone to extreme lengths to protect their prized possessions. He has invested heavily in security for his birds, some of which are worth 100,000 euros. They're watched by 15 video cameras. They have their own shower and solarium, and are treated like top sports champions.

De Cock, who is looking to sell many of his birds to Asian customers, says: "The Chinese attach a lot of importance to prestige. Even if they don't want to breed them or race them, they want to buy a luxury pigeon much like an art collector would like to buy a Rubens or a Rembrandt."

Belgium takes the sport seriously. Lede in East Flanders hosts a museum dedicated to the hobby.

But the decline of pigeon racing in the country is reflected in figures. In the 1950s, the country had more than 250,000 official members in the Royal Pigeon Federation. Now there are only 30,000.

The current Chinese duty case has certainly ruffled feathers. But the association's chief executive Nikolaas Gyselbrecht, who recently flew to Beijing to negotiate the release of Bolt and some of the pigeons held by Chinese authorities, remains optimistic about the sport's future.

He hopes the tiff will prove an isolated incident in the renewed international interest in the sport.

"We'd like to bring Chinese and Belgian pigeon fanciers closer together and contribute to the sport's further development," he says.

"There are exciting opportunities for exchanges. And we want to create an environment where fanciers from China and Belgium can get into contact with each other."

Contact the writer through

sundayed@chinadaily.com.cn.

A fancier selects a pigeon at an auction in Shandong province. There are said to be at least 300,000 pigeon fanciers in China. Provided to China Daily

(China Daily 01/12/2014 page3)