A retired Chinese badminton player's reappearance in the international arena lately has sparked heated debate among the public after she was found not representing China despite her current official post in the local sport authority.

Huang Sui, one of the world's greatest women badminton doubles players from China, participated in the 2012 Yonex Australian Open Grand Prix Gold after a hiatus of more than three years, but represented Australia.

The 31-year-old player's reappearance contradicts her current employment status as deputy director of the Badminton Sports Management Center of Hunan Province.

"We have been giving her a salary since her retirement from the national team in late 2007, but she has never shown up," Tang Hui, director of Hunan's badminton sports management center, told the Global Times yesterday.

Huang, among other world-renowned Chinese badminton players such as Gong Zhichao, Gong Ruina and Bao Chunlai, has trained at the center in Hunan Province, according to its website.

"Considering her devotion to China's badminton sports as an athlete and a long list of world prizes, we decided to give her this official post. And, from a cautious perspective, the center has not stripped her of it in an apparent effort to protect her benefits," Tang said.

Tang added that he had no idea about Huang's whereabouts before her reappearance last week, nor did he know how she managed to represent Australia.

Athletes from the best-trained Chinese national teams have been straying to represent other nations or regions for years in international competitions.

"Particularly, athletes from the teams such as badminton and table tennis face great peer pressure as there are more potential seedlings coming out every year," a former team manager with the National Table Tennis Team, who declined to be named, told the Global Times.

"Overseas, those next-to-the-best athletes are likely to be trained more carefully than in China, where resources have been focused on top players and medal earners," he added.

Calls to Badminton Australia, Badminton World Federation and the Chinese Badminton Association were all left unanswered as of late yesterday.

"We will negotiate with the Chinese Badminton Association for details as to how to handle this issue," Tang said.

The Open Grand Prix, which concluded yesterday in Sydney, saw Huang and her partner Tang Hetian lose their debut game to the pair Chien Yu-chin and Cheng Wen-hsing from Chinese Taipei on Thursday.

The new pair are not yet more than the sum of their parts, due to a short time training together, according to an article posted on the badminton news outlet badzine.net.

"I don't know about future plans in international badminton," Huang was quoted by badzine.net as saying.