Larmer, who was in Hong Kong this week, said the government's plans succeeded, producing two of the tallest players ever to grace a basketball court - Yao (seven-foot-six) and Wang Zhizhi (seven-foot-one).
But officials did not plan for foreigners to capitalise on their national treasures. In 1999, giant American sports company Nike and the NBA set their sights on the pair, hoping to tap into a market of 1.3 billion people.
'It became a tug-of-war between the east and west,' said Larmer, who gave up his job for two years to research the story full-time.
'On one side was the Chinese sports system, which had developed them to bring glory to China, and on the other side were the commercial forces.'
Wang joined the NBA in 2001, and Yao in 2002. In the US, their careers took different paths - one became a superstar and hero to millions of basketball fans worldwide, the other a struggling athlete, rejected by his homeland for refusing to play for the national team.
Yao, who plays for the NBA's Houston Rockets, was destined to become a living legend. He was five-foot-seven by age eight, six-foot-six at 13, and when he was 17, he was more than seven feet tall.
Yao probably became a 'giant' because his parents were also very tall. 'Yao's parents were probably the two tallest people in Shanghai, and they were both elite basketball players for the national teams,' said Larmer.
'His mother, six-foot-two Fang Fengdi, the women's team captain, was strongly encouraged to 'make do' with the centre from the men's team - six-foot-nine Yao Zhiyuan.
'Team leader Liu Shiyu assured both they had the approval of the Communist Party. A recommendation like this from a coach was very hard to reject. They got married, and Fang gave birth to their only son in 1980, and even then, everyone knew that something special was on its way.'
When Yao was still a baby, government sports officials and scientists visited his family home in Shanghai and measured his bones to see how tall he would become. But basketball didn't appeal to Yao at first. It was only when he heard about Wang, three years his senior, that he became interested.
'Yao didn't want to go to sports school, and once wanted to be an archaeologist. His attitude changed when he heard about Wang, who played for the People's Liberation Army team, and was regarded as China's best player,' said Larmer. When he was 13, Yao left his family home and joined a sports school outside Shanghai. At 14, Yao quit school to join Shanghai Sharks, a professional basketball team.
A few years later he was a superstar, and a target for one of the most famous sports leagues in the world.
Brook Larmer's Operation Yao Ming is now on sale in bookshops
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51krrPAyJyjnmdlaIB2fpJorpqkm567qHnTmqOl