Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong tips off the ball for the game between Tsinghua High School basketball team and Houston Select Team in Houston on Sunday. Chang Jun / China Daily

On the morning of the second day of her visit to Houston, China's Vice-Premier Liu Yandong played a little hoops - making a basket after three tries - and tipped off the ball for a basketball scrimmage between the Tsinghua High School team and the Houston Select U18 Boys team on Sunday.

Then, along with Vice-Minister of Education Hao Ping, NBA China CEO David Shoemaker, NBA Legend Yao Ming, Houston Rockets CEO Tad Brown and the delegation team, Liu watched the first quarter of the game.

The NBA invited the Tsinghua High School team to visit Houston from June 16-21 to attend six days of basketball clinics conducted by the Houston Rockets' player development coach Kevin Burleson. The program is part of a partnership established between the NBA and China's Ministry of Education in October 2014.

The partnership aims to promote basketball education in Chinese schools. Its goal is to provide enhanced basketball training to at least 3 million elementary and high school students by 2017. The unprecedented partnership is the NBA's first collaboration with China's education authority and the ministry of education's first partnership with an American professional sports league.

"The China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship," Liu said during a meeting with NBA officials prior to the game. "Only by deepening the people-to-people exchange in various fields can we build a strong social foundation for it. Sports are one of the earliest areas included in people-to-people relationships, and the NBA is the champion at doing this."

"On behalf of the Chinese government, I bring gratitude and appreciation to people in the NBA and the basketball sector for all you have done to promote that friendship," she added.

Liu said she hopes to get support from the NBA to help grow basketball in China and learn more from the NBA about the management and operation of the sport.

NBA China CEO David Shoemaker said that the NBA is "especially proud of the partnership we have with the Ministry of Education with a focus on youth basketball education. Since the signing of the agreement last October, we have conducted four basketball clinics and two coaching clinics. Since I became NBA China CEO, we have trained 2,000 Chinese children and coaches in basketball."