The article is devoted to the study of the history of the development and formation of the exchange of sports education between China and Russia. In the course of the study, special attention is paid to the retrospective development of sports and physical training in China, the change in ideology and key accents in the upbringing of the younger generation. Special emphasis is placed on the factors that predetermined the choice by the Chinese leadership of the Soviet model of building a system of physical education. Also, the article highlights the main components and elements of the exchange of experience between the two countries in the institutional and organizational support of the system of conducting physical education classes in educational institutions of different levels.