The first Games of the People's Republic of China were held in Beijing from 13 September to 3 October 1959. Participants in the Games included 10,658 people from the PLA and 29 delegations from 28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

The opening ceremony was attended by Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders. He Long, Director of the National Sports Commission, delivered an opening speech. Delegations from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Vietnam, Hungary, East Germany, Mongolia, Poland, North Korea and 10 other fraternal national sports delegations (24 people) and 11 military sports delegations (including Albania), totalling 31 people, attended, as did three representatives of the French Federation of Labor, two from Iraq, and one from Sudan. Three sports delegations from capitalist countries attended with 61 people.