Sport and Politics - Table Tennis

Table Tennis

In the 1970s an exchange of table tennis players from the United States and the People's Republic of China led to a thaw in Sino-American relations that eventually led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's rapprochement with China. It all began when the Chinese table tennis team invited their U.S. counterparts to their country on an all-expense paid trip during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Japan. Time magazine termed it: "The ping heard ‘round the world.'" On April 10, 1971, the team, and accompanying journalists, became the first U.S. sports delegation to enter and break the information blockade since 1949. Although the U.S. team was defeated by their hosts, in return to Premier Chou En-lai’s invitation to more U.S. journalists, the United States government announced that it would lift its 20-year embargo on trade with China. A reporter for Time noted that table tennis was "an apt metaphor for the relations between Washington and Peking" and that both state motioned a willingness to adapt to the new initiative. However, it was not until July 15, that Nixon would finally be the first U.S. president to pay a visit to China. Thirty-six years later, a three-day "Ping-Ping Diplomacy" event was held at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum during the week of June 9, 2008. The original members of the U.S. and Chinese teams from 1971 were present to participate at the event.