China to face Australia, Japan, Chinese Taipei in FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 qualifiers

GENEVA - China will kick off its quest for a FIBA Men's Basketball World Cup 2023 berth against Australia, Japan and Chinese Taipei, as revealed after the draw ceremony for the tournament's qualifiers was held on Tuesday.

The 2023 edition of the FIBA Basketball World Cup will be staged in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, marking the first time this tournament is hosted by multiple countries.

China missed out on direct qualification to the Olympics at the previous edition of the FIBA World Cup on home soil in 2019, and didn't get the ticket to the Tokyo Olympics through the qualifiers afterward.

In the Asia/Oceania region, China is pitted in Group B with Australia, Japan and Chinese Taipei.

Group A is comprised of New Zealand, South Korea, the Philippines and India. Group C features Jordan, Lebanon, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Iran, Kazakhstan, Syria and Bahrain are in Group D.

Top three teams in each group advance to the next round before the six teams that join the Philippines and Japan, who have automatically qualified for the tournament as the hosts, are decided. Both teams will play in the first round and second round of the qualifiers while advancing to the next phase as automatically qualified.

Indonesia needs to be ranked among the top eight teams at the FIBA Asia Cup 2021 to receive automatic qualification.

The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 competition system has six windows played over 15 months across the regions of Africa, Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe. Each qualification window lasts nine days running from November 2021 to February 2023.

80 teams will contend for 32 spots in a total of 420 games in the qualifying tournament.

Africa will have 16 national teams going for five spots. The Americas qualifiers will feature 16 teams vying for seven places. In the European qualifiers, 32 teams will contend for 12 World Cup berths.

Olympic gold medalist the United States will meet Puerto Rico, Mexico and Cuba in the qualifiers.

Reigning world champion Spain is placed in the same group with Georgia, North Macedonia and Ukraine.