International marketing: Manchester United get their strategy just right as they confront communism with Chinese characteristics. Clifford Coonan in Beijing reports

The first visit to Red China by the Red Devils triggered a serious outbreak of Manchester United fever, in a sprawling country where the club has 23 million fans and counting. That's an awful lot of jerseys.

On a balmy night in Beijing, the Workers Stadium was just over half-full for Manchester United's 3-0 win over local heroes Beijing Guo'an, also known as Beijing Hyundai. But that was more a reflection of the sorry state of the domestic game, crippled by sponsorship worries, match-fixing and financial scandals. And China's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup still hurts.

But Manchester United remain football's number one in the world's most populous country, by a long way, and both the watching Bryan Glazer, whose father has just bought the club, and the Chinese fans were happy with the night's work.

"I'm a Beijing Guo'an fan, but I like Manchester United a lot too. I watch English, German and Italian football every week," said one red-shirted Chinese fan outside the stadium. He was watching, with a certain amount of envy, as a group of United fans from England sang songs and drank beer.

China has gone football mad as the country moves from Chairman Mao-era austerity to socialism with Chinese characteristics. Alongside basketball, soccer is massive, and Manchester United is the club everyone knows about.

Most taxi drivers can't tell you the capital of Ireland but they know where Roy Keane is from. He's the only Irish export bigger than Riverdance.

Tearful autograph hunters thronged the Kerry Centre Hotel in downtown Beijing this week, desperate for a glimpse of their idols.

New signing Edwin van der Sar had a crowd around him when the goalkeeper nipped out to the supermarket on Monday, while Wayne Rooney and Alan Smith were mobbed in the hotel lobby by eager fans. All of the players remained polite and friendly. Even Rooney.

"We are preparing for every match," said Smith in the run-up. "This is very important for us."

Clubs have to be careful not to take their Chinese fans for granted, as Real Madrid discovered to their cost last week.

"Real Madrid left Beijing on Sunday morning with swelled coffers but a diminished reputation after their lacklustre display," was the damning line in the China Daily newspaper after a bored Real beat Guo'an 3-2, without former United idol David Beckham.

Manchester United were careful not to repeat Los Galacticos' mistake, and Alex Ferguson held good to his pledge to play a full-strength team in what turned out to be a fairly entertaining friendly.

Everton and Manchester City are popular here, because Li Tie plays for Everton and Sun Jihai, who captains the national side, plays for City. But Manchester United has the kind of brand loyalty in China that other teams would die for.

As a gesture of goodwill, United have hooked up with Unicef to help stop over one million children in southwestern China being sold into illegal labour.

The club have just launched a Chinese website, a credit card in Asia and are giving away free merchandise to supporters who join the international supporters' club, One United.

United have also set up soccer schools in Hong Kong and are coaching Chinese youngsters.

They know it's important to get it right in China. A survey by United showed that 79 per cent of Chinese are familiar with Manchester United. That's around one billion people.

Beijing Guo'an were overwhelmed by the far stronger Premiership club, with a resurgent Paul Scholes scoring both goals in the first half.

There was a warm welcome for the arrival of Portuguese midfielder Cristiano Ronaldo, who joined the tour late after visiting his ill father. He had a great game, and his cross early in the second half led to United's third goal by new Korean signing Park Ji Sung.

Another big draw for the Beijing crowd was United's Chinese youngster Dong Fangzhuo. The Dalian native had scored a cracker after coming off the bench in the club's 2-0 win over Hong Kong on Friday.

While buying Dong no doubt has elements of cynical commercial strategy, he clearly has talent and regular appearances would help boost soccer in China and give the club a commercial boost. All the 20-year-old striker needs is a few Chinese caps to help him get a work permit.

United have slipped in the Premiership in recent years, losing some ground to Chelsea and Arsenal, but that matters little to the Chinese fans.

And after the match, Ryan Giggs made a personal plea to his Chinese fans.

"Keep on supporting Manchester United. And hopefully we'll be back soon."