Ping Pong Diplomacy: Using Sports for Peace

On April tenth, nineteen seventy one, the US table tennis team, featuring nine players, four officials, and two spouses, crossed the bridge from Hong Kong into mainland China, and they were the first group of Americans allowed in China since Communists took over in nineteen forty nine, giving an olive branch for the United States and China to begin diplomatic relations again. Here's the story behind how ping pong was used politically on today's Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a deep dive into sports history every day. So in nineteen forty nine, the Communist Party took over China, and at the time, the United States, who had a democracy government, was very anti Communist and this meant that embargoes and relations between the two countries had essentially ended. But after over twenty years of no diplomatic or economic relations, the two countries were starting to soften toward each other. China was starting to grow economically and wanted to continue to grow in the United States saw China as an opportunity to continue the growth that we were going through, but to break down these borders in these walls they had built up. They needed something to happen. The leader of China, Mao Zeidong, and the President of the United States Reterdection had actually started somewhat of negotiations, not face to face, but using different delegates to kind of break down the walls and barriers starting around nineteen seventy but they never actually met to actually discuss anything in person. But random act really opened the floodgates, and it happened with the most unlikely person. In nineteen seventy one, the thirty first World Tennis Table Championship was held in the Gotbat, Japan, and this was an important event for many reasons, but the main one for table tennis purposes was this was the first one China had been to in about seven years, and China at the time was the number one table tennis team in the world, so not having that team at your World Championships was very challenging, but this one was one for them to come back, and it was also used as a point for the China government to kind of show they were opening up a little bit to the world. Then you have America's table tennis team, who was more of an upstart team, not ranked very high and didn't have a lot of great players, but they were good enough to make the championship. And one of their players, Glenn Cowan, was a great up and coming prospect and won the Junior Euros Opened and the US Open and made the national team. It was excited just for the chance to go to Japan to play. To describe Glynn as he was your classic hippie back from the nineteen sixties and seventies. You know, war tight I shirt, love the Beatles, peace, love and happiness. That was all he was about. You picture a hippie back in the day with his long flowing hair bandana. That was Glenn. We'll have a picture for him if you want to look on our socials. But he was exactly who you think a guy playing ping pong in the seventies would be. And that's even how he behaved now. He was actually in a training session for the tournament and got so focused in on his training session he missed his bus with the rest of the American team, so he just waited fifteen minutes for the next bus, and when he got on the bus, it was not obviously the American team, it was the China team who was on the bus, but they were going to the same place, so they allowed him on the bus. But the Chinese team was a little stand offish. They had grown up in the world of America is bad. Everything America stands for is bad. Don't talk to Americans, don't be part of American culture. Everything to do with Americans bad. However, Glenn went over and shook zau Yang ze Doong's hand because he knew of Zeidong because he was the number one tennis player in the world and just the chance to meet him was a great moment for Glenn, and Ze Doong shook his hand and wanted to present a gift to him, and he looked in and he found a screen printing in his bag of the how Zingg Mountains in China and presented it to Glenn. Now, Glynn also wanted to present a gift back to Zeidong, but all he had was combs in his bag and he thought wouldn't really be a nice thing to give. So later on, when at the championship, he was able to bring a shirt that he had with a peace signed emblem on it of that was red, white and blue that said let it be under It lyrics from the Beatles, showing his hippie like style and the two diverse gifts that they were giving each other. Now this this moment was captured by cameras by all the media that was there covering the event, especially China as this was their first World Championship in years and they had a large media following for the team. And this made worldwide news seeing the two countries that had been on odds for so long having an exchange of gifts. They asked Glynn in these interviews after taking these pictures, would he ever want to go to China, and he said absolutely, I want to go anywhere I haven't been, whether it be Arditina, Australia, China, anywhere. He said, of course, I want to go to China. And this not only did it get to the US and President Nixon, it got to mal Zeidong, the leader of the Communist Party in China, and this led them to do something unprecedent that they had never done before. They opened their gates and invited the US team to come visit and do a tour in China now for the championship. The US team didn't do particularly very well. They were still an up and coming team and not very good in the program, but China did fantastic degrade everything they thought they would do, they did fantastic. After the World Championship was over, the China government to open up their borders and allow the US team to come visit. Total of nine players with four officials and two spouses, and they basically were on tour. This was something very unusual. They got to go see many different places throughout China, play friendly matches against the Chinese team, meet high up and coming people, to meet the Prime Minister of China, and were able to tour places like the Great Wall in the Summer Palace, and able to take into ballet. And they spent about six days there before coming back to America, which helped open up everything. Everyone was asking them what was it like because no Americans had been there, and they really wanted to focus on Glynn because he really broke down the doors and he really said, they're just real people. Everyone there is nice, they're genuine, they're not terrible people. We painted them in this light of being communists and terrible, but they have beautiful places. The country's beautiful, The Great Wall is beautiful, and it was a great place, and the US and China used this as kind of opening the book on what they could do, and on June tenth that same year, the US government lifted the embargo against China, and less than a year later, in February of nineteen seventy two, President Richard Nixon would visit Shanghai, being the first president to visit China, creating a working relationship between the two countries. And two months after Nixon's visit, Seydong, the Prime Minister of China, would head over to America, as the China team would do a tour in America, playing across the country and even playing a game in front of Richard Nixon, breaking down the barriers of the walls that they had before and using sport of table tennis to break down the walls and the barriers, showing what reach a sport can have in the world. Thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. It means a lot to me. I want to thank you so much for joining me. It takes a lot for me to put all these together, and I really appreciate that you took the time to listen, and I would love for you to come back and tell a friend to join you so you guys can talk about all the history you guys are learning together, and we'll see you tomorrow for more daily sports history.