Rong Guotuan (1937-1968) was born in a worker family in Hong Kong and his hometown is Nanping Township, Zhongshan County, Guangdong Province. His father, Rong Mianzhi, was one of the main members of patriotic trade union in Hong Kong. His maternal uncle was an amateur table tennis player and Rong Guotuan was attracted to table tennis under the influence of his maternal uncle.

In 1941, Hong Kong was occupied by the enemy. Rong Guotuan and his family moved back to Nanping, their hometown. Then he studied in Zhenxian School where he rapidly improved his level of table tennis, laying the solid foundation for his future development in this field.

When he returned to Hong Kong, his skill in table tennis attracted the attention of Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions. After that, he was selected by the Recreation Club of the Federation of Trade Unions in 1956 and received systematic training there. During that period, he went back to the mainland for visit contests for many times as a member of the workers’ sports team.

In 1957, Rong Guotuan participated in Hong Kong Intercity Table Tennis Championship and won three champions in the men’s team, men's doubles and men's singles for the citizen team he represented, which was record-breaking act in Hong Kong’s table tennis history and shocked the table tennis circles. However, his performance also caused the envy of many peers and that made him feel distressed.

In September 1957, when he went back to the mainland for a game with his team, he decided not to return to Hong Kong and would stay in Guangzhou. Then, he took part in games as one of the players in Guangdong team and Chinese team.

In 1959, Rong Guotuan served as one of the players in Chinese team to participate the 25th World Table Tennis Championships held in West Germany,and he won the third place in the men's team and the world champion in the men's singles. He won the first sports world champion for China in the history and broke China's record of zero champion in the world sports competition.

Before long, the International Table Tennis Federation passed a resolution and decided to hold the 26th World Table Tennis Championships in Beijing in 1961. During the 26th World Table Tennis Championships, Rong Guotuan won the first world champion in men's team for China.

In 1963, Rong Guotuan was appointed as the coach of the second men's national table tennis team and cultivated many up-and-coming youngsters for the table tennis team, such as Zhou Lansun and Yu Yize. During that period, he led the Chinese men's and women's table tennis teams to Moscow and participated the International Table Tennis Tournament, and finally won five champions for China.

At the end of 1964, he was appointed as the coach of the national women's team when the women's team lost streak to Japan. In order to bring about a fightback, he gave up all vacations and worked around the clock. Eventually he trained a powerful women's team with excellent skills and ideological style.

In April 1965, he led Chinese women’s team to take part in the 28th World Table Tennis Championships held in Yugoslavia. The team won the champions in women's team, women's doubles and mixed doubles, forming the gratifying situation that Chinese woman athletes for table tennis would absolutely win the champion once they took part in the game.

Such magnificent achievement shocked the world table tennis circles once again. China and its people highly praised and rewarded Rong Guotuan for his outstanding contributions. The State Physical Culture and Sports Commission of China awarded him the special merits twice. In addition, he was also a memberof the second and third CPPCC in Guangdong Province.

During the Great Cultural Revolution, Rong Guotuan was impacted seriously. Unfortunately, he could not bear it spiritually and committed suicide to express his protest in 1968.