When Japan got knocked out by Brazil.
Now all of Asia is out I think unless you count Australia which should be Oceania anyway.
All that effort required and needed. And yet the best you can last is a few days more than the group stages.
Exactly, for anyone who thinks that China "ought" to be better at football, to qualify for the World Cup, to win it one day, well you play to win, just realise that this is the single hardest sport in the world to want to win. Every country wants it, but the Europeans will always be some 10 years ahead of everyone else. You either have a well developed multi-billion dollar football league and industry, or your country's youth have no better way to make a living other than to play football and hope to one day join the European clubs, then the best you can hope for is to become like the Japans or Koreas. The Latin American method also carry a risk of making the sport a kind of quasi-religion for your people.
Just treat this as a simple sport where people enjoy playing and can get fit at the same time. There is no need for any governmental effect in promoting it anymore than present. Just let this be a grassroots level initiative. When China becomes truly rich, and have a lot of free time for sports entertainment indulgence, when it has the political heft to set the international rules in sports, and keep the profits of professional sports for themselves, yeah maybe then they can be more serious about it, because then it becomes a money making business. But still, hopefully in moderation.