Three decades ago, U.S.-Chinese reconciliation
began when China invited American table tennis players to visit.
Until then, relations had been frozen in a hostility far worse than
what the world is now witnessing over China's holding of a U.S. spy
plane and its crew. Associated Press reporter John Roderick, who accompanied
the players on their 1971 trip, recalls the birth of "pingpong
diplomacy."
The Chinese premier leaned forward, put down his steaming cup of
jasmine tea and asked his guests to extend his nation's regards to
America.
|  | | Members of the U.S. table tennis team attend a meeting between the Chinese and U.S. delegations on April 16, 1971. Americans are Graham Steenhoven, second from left, Rufford Harrison, third from left, and Connie Sweeris, far right, |
"You have opened a new page of the relations of the Chinese and
American people," Zhou Enlai said.
The day was April 10, 1971 -- one of those rare moments when
private citizens joined politicians in making history.
Zhou's guests were members of the national table tennis team of
the United States a country with which communist China had no
formal ties. Dubbed "Pingpong Diplomacy," the visit would lead to
a U.S.-Chinese reconciliation after decades of hostility.
Right now, relations have been darkened by confrontation over an
American spy plane and its crew seized by China. But as the 30th
anniversary of pingpong diplomacy approaches, it's worth reflecting
on how political, personal and commercial ties have grown beyond
the wildest expectations.
Since China's 1949 revolution, the two sides had officially
loathed each other. Doors were firmly closed to any exchange of
visitors.
But by 1971 they had realized that they needed each other. The
United States, bogged down in Vietnam, wanted Chinese help to end
the war. Beijing wanted support against the Soviet Union, a fellow
communist power that had become an enemy.
Zhou tested the diplomatic waters by inviting American table
tennis players, fresh from the world championships in Japan, to
stop by. I was one of three U.S. reporters who went along.
Recalling that he had known me since 1945, when we met in the
Chinese wartime capital of Chongqing and later in the communist
guerrilla base in western China, Zhou said, "Mr. Roderick, you
opened the door."
During a relaxed 90-minute meeting, Zhou chatted amiably with
the Americans, players from other countries and reporters.
A long-haired player asked Zhou what he thought of American
hippies. Zhou, the communist son of a mandarin court official,
replied that as a young man, he too had been a rebel. Young
Americans, he suggested, were unhappy and seeking truth.
Zhou's expression of good wishes was just what Richard Nixon
wanted to hear. Reassured, the president made his own historic
visit to China the next year.
Then, as now, the major issue dividing Beijing and Washington
was Taiwan. China's former Nationalist rulers had retreated to the
island after losing a civil war in 1949. Although they ruled a tiny
territory, they were still recognized by Washington and most
countries as China's true leaders.
Nixon agreed that there was only one China -- represented by
Beijing, not Taipei. That policy was once again reaffirmed last
month by President Bush in a meeting with Chinese Deputy Premier
Qian Qichen in Washington.
Qian, in a speech later, echoed Zhou's language of pingpong
diplomacy.
"China and the United States have no reason to become rivals or
enemies. We have plenty of reasons to become partners and
friends," Qian said.
That tone recalls the days soon after World War II, before the
big freeze set in.
Then, Zhou and U.S. Gen. George Marshall were trying in vain to
avert civil war with the Nationalists of dictator Chiang Kai-shek.
I was at Yanan, the western base for Mao Tse-tung's communist
guerrillas, and the mood was pro-American and optimistic.
Today, the United States and many other governments recognize
Beijing, not Taipei. But official ties lag behind people-to-people
relations that began with the electrifying arrival of the American
table tennis team in Beijing in 1971.
The team was a cross-section of America. Its captain was a
graying Chrysler executive. Players included a chemist, a college
student, an immigrant and a housewife.
Casually dressed, they were a splash of color in a gray city
still gripped by the terror of the Cultural Revolution. That
struggle for control of the ruling party wouldn't end until Mao's
death in September 1976. (Zhou Enlai had died the previous April.)
Applauding crowds followed the team wherever they went.
"Meiguoren, hen hao," their admirers exclaimed -- "Americans.
They're great."
I found out later that while the Chinese were putting on their
show of friendship, a former Nationalist pilot was under house
arrest -- a victim of Mao's paranoia. His crime was having known me,
an American, in 1946.
I learned this in a letter from him in the late 1990s after he
was released and had become coach of China's national boxing team.
The Americans lost their exhibition matches 4-3 to China but
returned home to enthusiastic applause.
It was to be the first of a flood of visits from both countries.
Untold thousands of Americans have seen China as tourists,
students and teachers. Chinese students return from the United
States with not only scientific and other training, but knowledge
of American democracy.
Too much knowledge, Communist Party members have complained to
me. They say millions of Chinese, exposed to American life through
television and travel, now look to America, not to communism, as
their ideal.
John Roderick reopened the AP's Beijing bureau in
1979. He retired in 1984 and now lives in Japan.
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