Historic 50 years of pingpong diplomacy
When Chris Miller, a business advisory services manager at the US-China Business Council, watched the film “Forest Gump,” which featured Pingpong Diplomacy, he had never thought that he would take part in anything related to it.
But on April 10, he attended a friendship table tennis match at the International Table Tennis Federation Museum and China Table Tennis Museum in Shanghai to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historical event.
Half a century ago, at the conclusion of the 31st World Championships in Nagoya, Japan, the US table tennis team received an invitation from the Chinese table tennis team to visit China.
They arrived on April 10, 1971, becoming the first US group to visit since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The Chinese team paid a return visit the following year.
The visits broke the ice in 22 years of estranged Sino-US relations and eventually led to the normalization of bilateral ties.
During their eight-day visit to China, they played friendly competitions with Chinese pingpong players with a principle “friendship first, competition second.”
The event, organized by the Shanghai People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Shanghai Sports Federation, Shanghai University of Sport and Shanghai Institute of American Studies, with the same principle, gathered 13 Chinese people and 13 Americans working and living in Shanghai. They were mixed and divided into four teams to play the doubles competition, with each American paired with a Chinese.
“Though I’m busy and going to get married next week, I wanted to take part in it and spent time practicing once a week over the past month,” Miller said.
Jeffrey Lehman, vice-chancellor of New York University Shanghai said pingpong has been one of his favorite sports since childhood. He shared his memories of the Chinese table tennis team’s return visit to the US in 1972. “It started with a critical moment when one (American) player got on the wrong bus and another (Chinese) player reached out to him and they became friends. From that, they changed our history. I’ve been living in China for 13 years. At the level of individuals, students, business people, it’s natural to be friends, to cooperate and to engage to do these things.”
Unique communication
Before the competition kicked off, the Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai gave a video speech at the launching ceremony for the celebrations.
“The Pingpong Diplomacy of 50 years ago is of special significance in the history of China-US relations,” he said.
“It opened up a creative and unique way of communication between the two peoples, who had been separated for decades, and sent a signal to both countries and the world that China and the United States would improve their relations, thus ushering in a series of major events from President Nixon’s visit to China to the establishment of China-US diplomatic relations.”
He pointed out that today the relationship faces a critical choice as to its future path. “The two sides should inherit and carry forward the spirit of Pingpong Diplomacy featuring mutual respect and seeking common ground while reserving differences,” he said. “At present, the pandemic and the great changes unseen in a century are intertwined, and traditional and non-traditional security threats have emerged one after another.
“In the face of varied global challenges, China and the United States can and should cooperate in more rather than less areas. The two countries should strengthen coordination and collaboration on issues such as COVID-19 response, climate change and economic recovery, provide more public goods to the world, and make globalization more open, inclusive, balanced, and beneficial to all.”
Sheri Cioroslan, former president of USA Table Tennis, said in a video message on how she got to know Pingpong Diplomacy at a young age and decided to choose table tennis as her sport.
After Cioroslan became president of USA Table Tennis in 1999, she decided to revive the China-US friendship in terms of table tennis. She recalled memories about the 35th and 40th anniversary celebrations of the Pingpong Diplomacy in 2006 and 2011.
“There are so many memories to cherish and so many more to make,” she said.
Sha Hailin, chairman of the Shanghai People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, gifted eight Chinese witnesses of the Pingpong Diplomacy with souvenir medals and pingpong paddles. The souvenirs for American witnesses were received by James Heller, the US consul general in Shanghai.