China-US ping-pong diplomacy 2.0 served up
A delegation of star table tennis players and coaches from China has begun a two-week training session in the United States with top players from Team USA, an event that organizers said will further enhance communication and friendship between athletes of the two countries.
“#Pingpong diplomacy has played a pivotal role in #ChinaUS relations. I wish our national #tabletennis team a good visit to the US to further the spirit of friendship and cooperation,” Cui Tiankai, Chinese ambassador to the US, said on Twitter.
The 58-member delegation, led by Liu Guoliang — a table tennis legend and chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Association — includes many distinguished players such as Olympic gold medalists Ma Long and Ding Ning, as well as former Olympic and world champions Ma Lin, Chen Qi, Wang Hao and Guo Yan.
The Chinese team and US players are practicing in a joint training camp at the University of California, Los Angeles, which started on Sunday and will end on Aug 25, said Bruce Liu, a member of the board of directors of USA Table Tennis.
Team members from the US were likely include players such as Lily Zhang, Wu Yue, Amy Wang, Nikhil Kumar, Kanak Jha and Nicholas Tio.
“Table tennis has played a pivotal role in the establishment of SinoUS diplomatic relations. We hope to enhance the friendship between the two countries through the joint practice,” Liu said.
He added that the idea for the joint training camp came about after Houston, Texas, and Chengdu, Sichuan province, learned they will host the 2021 and 2022 world table tennis championships, respectively. The locations were announced at the International Table Tennis Federation’s annual general meeting in Budapest, Hungary, in April.
The US and China hosting the world table tennis championships in successive years is significant because 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy.
In 1971, a chance encounter between a US player and a Chinese player, Glenn Cowan and Zhuang Zedong, during the 31st World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan, led to an unexpected thaw in the long-stalled SinoUS relationship.
As they prepared to leave Nagoya, the US Table Tennis Team received an all-expenses-paid invitation to visit China, where they would play a series of friendly matches.
In response to the US athletes’ visit, the Chinese National Table Tennis Team, led by Zhuang Zedong, embarked on an eight-city tour in the US in April 1972.
What became known as pingpong diplomacy paved the way for president Richard Nixon’s historic visit to Beijing in February 1972.
It also led to the 1979 signing of the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and US president Jimmy Carter, which formally established relations between the two countries.
“This is the first time the Chinese team will bring its entire squad, and it will present a great opportunity for the US players to learn, to build friendships with the Chinese players and also to build a great partnership between our two associations,” said USA Table Tennis CEO Virginia Sung.
“We hope to make this joint training camp an annual event leading up to the Houston and Chengdu world championships and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games,” she added.
Table tennis has played a pivotal role in the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic relations.” Liu Guoliang, a table tennis legend and chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Association