Ping-pong diplomacy

Ping-pong diplomacy (Chinese: 乒乓外交 Pīngpāng wàijiāo) refers to the exchange of table tennis (ping-pong) players between the United States and People's Republic of China (PRC) in the early 1970s. The event marked a thaw in Sino-American relations that paved the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon.

History

The U.S. Table Tennis team was in Nagoya, Japan in 1971 for the 31st World Table Tennis Championships on April 6 when they received an invitation to visit China. From the early years of the People's Republic, sports had played an important role in diplomacy, often incorporating the slogan "Friendship First, Competition Second". During the isolationist years, athletes were among the few PRC nationals who were allowed to travel overseas. On April 10, 1971, the team and accompanying journalists became the first American delegation to set foot in the Chinese capital since 1949.^[1] The meeting was facilitated by the National Committee on United States – China Relations. Prior to the visit by the American table tennis players, eleven Americans were admitted into the PRC for one week because they all professed affiliation with the Black Panther Party which followed a Maoist political line. This was unusual, given that high-profile American citizens such as Senator Eugene McCarthy expressed interest in visiting China after the 1968 presidential election, but even he could not have a trip arranged for him despite his office.

According to History of U.S. Table Tennis by American table tennis players and Tim Boggan, who went to China along with the U.S. Table Tennis Team, three incidents may have triggered the invitation from China. Welshman H. Roy Evans, then President of the International Table Tennis Federation, claimed that he visited China prior to the 31st World Table Tennis Championship and suggested non-Chinese sports authorities and Premier Zhou Enlai that China should take steps to get in contact with the world through international sport events after the Cultural Revolution. Further, the American player Leah "Miss Ping" Neuberger, the 1956 World Mixed Doubles Champion and nine-time U.S. Open Women's Singles Champion, was traveling at the time with the Canadian Table Tennis Team that had been invited by China to visit the country. China diplomatically extended its approval of Leah Neuberger's application for a visa to the entire American team. The third incident, perhaps the most likely trigger, was the unexpected but dramatic meeting between the flamboyant American player Glenn Cowan and the Chinese player Zhuang Zedong, a three-time world champion and winner of many other table tennis events. Zhuang Zedong described the incident^[2] in a 2007 talk at the USC U.S.-China Institute.

The events leading up to the encounter began when Glenn Cowan missed his team bus one afternoon after his practice in Nagoya during the 31st World Table Tennis Championship. Cowan had been practicing for 15 minutes with the Chinese player, Liang Geliang, when a Japanese official came and wanted to close the training area. As Cowan looked in vain for his team bus, a Chinese player waved to him to get on his Chinese team bus. Moments after his casual talking through an interpreter to the Chinese players, Zhuang Zedong came up from his back seat to greet him and presented him with a silk-screen portrait of Huangshan Mountains, a famous product from Hangzhou. Cowan wanted to give something back, but all he could find from his bag was a comb. The American hesitantly replied, "I can't give you a comb. I wish I could give you something, but I can't." This World Table Tennis Championships marked the return of China's participation after a six-year absence. When the Chinese team and Cowan walked off the bus, journalists who were following the Chinese team took photographs.^[3] In the political climate of the 1960s, the sight of an athlete of Communist China with an athlete of the United States was sure to garner attention. Glenn Cowan later bought a T-shirt with a red, white and blue, peace emblem flag and the words "Let It Be," which he presented to Zhuang Zedong at another chance meeting.

When a journalist asked Cowan, "Mr. Cowan, would you like to visit China?", he answered, "Well, I'd like to see any country I haven't seen before--Argentina, Australia, China, ... Any country I haven't seen before." "But what about China in particular? Would you like to go there?" "Of course," said Glenn Cowan.

During an interview in 2002 with the famous TV personality Chen Luyu, Zhuang Zedong told more of the story: "The trip on the bus took 15 minutes, and I hesitated for 10 minutes. I grew up with the slogan 'Down with the American imperialism!' And during the Cultural Revolution, the string of class struggle was tightened unprecedentedly, and I was asking myself, 'Is it okay to have anything to do with your No. 1 enemy?'" Zhuang recalled remembering that Chairman Mao Zedong met Edgar Snow on the Rostrum of Tiananmen on the National Day in 1970 and said to Snow that China should now place its hope on American people. Zhuang looked in his bag and first went through some pins, badges with Mao's head, silk handkerchiefs, and fans. But he felt these were not decent enough to be a good gift. He finally picked the said silk portrait of Huangshan Mountains. On the following day, many Japanese newspapers carried photographs of Zhuang Zedong and Glenn Cowan.

Richard Nixon meets with Mao Zedong in 1972.

When the Chinese Department of Foreign Affairs received a report that the U.S. Table Tennis Team hoped to get invited to visit China, the Department declined as usual. Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong initially agreed with the decision, but when Mao Zedong saw the news in Dacankao, a newspaper accessible only to high-ranking government officials, he decided to invite the U.S. Table Tennis Team. It was reported that Mao Zedong said, "This Zhuang Zedong not only plays table tennis well, but is good at foreign affairs, and he has a mind for politics.^[4]" On April 10, 1971, nine American players, four officials, and two spouses stepped across a bridge from Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland and then spent their time during April 11–17 playing fun matches, touring the Great Wall and Summer Palace, and watching a ballet.

Legacy

During the week of June 9, 2008, a three-day ping-pong diplomacy event was held at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California. Original members of both the Chinese and American ping-pong teams from 1971 were present and competed again.

In 1988, table tennis became an Olympic sport.

Ping-pong diplomacy was referenced in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. After suffering injuries in battle, Forrest develops an aptitude for the sport and joins the U.S. Army team — eventually competing against Chinese teams on a goodwill tour.

Reactions

Upon his return to the United States, one of the American players told reporters that the Chinese were very similar to people in the U.S. He said:

"The people are just like us. They are real, they're genuine, they got feeling. I made friends, I made genuine friends, you see. The country is similar to America, but still very different. It's beautiful. They got the Great Wall, they got plains over there. They got an ancient palace, the parks, there's streams, and they got ghosts that haunt; there's all kinds of, you know, animals. The country changes from the south to the north. The people, they have a, a unity. They really believe in their Maoism."^[5]

Nixon's visit

Nixon attending a ping-pong exhibition in Beijing.

Main article: 1972 Nixon visit to China

Two months after Richard Nixon's visit, Zhuang Zedong visited the U.S. as the head of a Chinese table-tennis delegation, April 12–30, 1972. Also on the itinerary were Canada, Mexico and Peru. However, China's attempts to reach out to countries through "ping-pong diplomacy" were not always successful, such as when the All Indonesia Table Tennis Association (PTMSI) refused China's invitation in October 1971, claiming that accepting the PRC's offer would improve the PRC's reputation. Because neither Soviet athletes nor journalists appeared in China following the appearance of the American players and journalists, one speculation is that the act showed the equal scorn of both countries towards the USSR.

References

↑ MacMillan, Margaret (1985). Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. New York, NY: Random House Digital, Inc. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-8129-7057-9.
↑ Huang, Rune-Wen; Gants, Connor (03-07-2008). "Diplomacy in the Sports Arena". US-China Today. USC US-China Institute. Retrieved Apr 24, 2013. Check date values in: |date= (help)
↑ "From Ping Pong Diplomacy to the Beijing Games". Team USA. Jun 12, 2008. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
↑ "Ping-Pong Diplomacy and a Changing World [ ChinesePod Weekly ]". The Official ChinesePod Blog. Apr 11, 2012. Retrieved Apr 24, 2013.
↑ "1971 Year in Review, Foreign Policy: Red China and Russia". UPI Year in Review 1970-1979. United Press International. Retrieved Apr 24, 2013.

Boggan, Tim. History of U.S. Table Tennis

Additional reading

"Talking Points" (USC US-China Newsletter), July 22, 2011, looks at the fortieth anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy, notes that the term was first used in 1901, and discusses how it was a bold bit of public diplomacy on China's part while China and the United States were engaged in back channel discussions.
Itoh, Mayumi (2011). The Origin of Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Forgotten Architect of Sino-U.S. Rapprochement. Palgrave-MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-230-11813-3.
Mathews, Jay. "The Strange Tale of American Attempts to Leap the Wall of China". The New York Times, 18 April 1971.
Schwartz, Harry. "Triangular Politics and China". The New York Times, 19 April 1971: 37.
Wang Guanhua, "'Friendship First': China’s Sports Diplomacy in the Cold War Era", Journal of American-East Asian Relations 12.3-4 (Fall-Winter 2003): 133-153.
Xu Guoqi, "The Sport of Ping-Pong Diplomacy", Ch. Five, in Olympic Dreams: China and Sports 1895-2008 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-674-02840-1), pp. 117–163.

External links

Zhuang Zedong 2007 talk about the 1971 encounter
PBS article
Smithsonian Magazine article
New round of ping pong diplomacy (The Guardian, Tuesday, June 10, 2008)

Cold War

USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact

1940s	Hukbalahap Rebellion Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito–Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round) Malayan Emergency

1950s	Bamboo Curtain Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Syrian Crisis of 1957 Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Bandung Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Iraqi July Revolution "We will bury you"

1960s	Congo Crisis Sino-Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet–Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War (Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence) Cuban Missile Crisis Sino-Indian War Sarawak Communist Insurgency Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967–74 USS Pueblo incident Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Malaysia Communist Insurgency War Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict CPP-NPA-NDF rebellion Corrective Move

1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement (Syria) Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution (Egypt) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union

1980s	Soviet–Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars Invasion of Grenada People Power Revolution Nagorno-Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika

1990s	Mongolian Revolution of 1990 Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Frozen conflicts	Abkhazia China Korea Nagorno-Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino-Indian border dispute

Foreign policy	Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War

Ideologies	Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply-side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism–Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Liberal democracy Social democracy

Organizations	ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club MI6 Stasi

Propaganda	Active measures Izvestia Pravda Crusade for Freedom Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia

Races	Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race

See also	Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet espionage in U.S. Russian espionage in U.S. American espionage in the Soviet Union Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits

Category Portal Timeline List of conflicts

Table tennis in China

Organization	Table Tennis Association Super League

History	Ping-pong diplomacy

Notable players	Cai Zhenhua Cao Yanhua Cao Zhen Chen Jing Chen Longcan Chen Meng Chen Qi Chen Xinhua Chen Zihe Cheng Jingqi Dai Lili Deng Yaping Ding Ning Ding Song Fan Ying Fan Zhendong Fang Bo Gao Jun Ge Xinai Geng Lijuan Gu Yuting Guo Yan Guo Yue Guo Yuehua Hao Shuai He Zhili Hu Xiaoxin Hu Yulan Huang Junqun Hui Jun Jiang Jialiang Jiao Zhimin Kong Linghui Kong Lingxuan Li Chunli Li Furong Li Henan Li Huifen Li Jia Li Ju Li Li Li Nan Li Ping Li Xiaoxia Li Zhenshi Liang Geliang Liang Jingkun Liang Lizhen Lin Huiqing Lin Ling Liu Gaoyang Liu Guoliang Liu Guozheng Liu Shiwen Liu Wei Lü Lin Ma Lin Ma Long Ma Wenge Mu Zi Ni Xialian Niu Jianfeng Qi Baoxiang Qiao Hong Qiao Yunping Qiu Zhonghui Rong Guotuan Shi Zhihao Sun Jin Tang Peng Tang Weiyi Teng Yi Tong Ling Wang Chen Wang Chuanyao Wang Hao Wang Huiyuan Wang Jiasheng Wang Liqin Wang Nan Wang Tao Wang Zhiliang Wei Qingguang Wu Yang Xi Enting Xie Chaojie Xie Saike Xu Xin Xu Yinsheng Yan Sen Yang Ying (born 1953) Yang Ying (born 1977) Yin Hang Zhang Deying Zhang Jike Zhang Li Zhang Xiaoling Zhang Xielin Zhang Yining Zheng Huaiying Zheng Minzhi Zhou Lansun Zhou Yu Zhu Yuling Zhuang Zedong

Sport in the People's Republic of China List of Chinese table tennis players

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, February 09, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.