Ping pong diplomacy echoes back and forth to this day

About 300 ping-pong players in the San Francisco Bay Area gathered on Sunday morning to compete at three skill levels for a championship. It was the seventh consecutive year that San Francisco hosted a city-wide, day-long sporting event of this scale.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee attended the opening ceremony. "For the 7th year, the ping-pong competition continues to promote good exercise and international relationships," he said.

If you ask any American what one single sport fully represents China, the answer will undoubtedly be unanimous — ping-pong, better known as table tennis.

The small white ball batted with paddles came to symbolize how visionary leaders in both China and the US in the 1970s made tremendous efforts and showed courageous leadership in bringing the long-stagnant bilateral relationship between China and the US back onto the track of normalcy.

In 1971, nine US table tennis players attending the Nagoya World Table Tennis Championship in Japan were invited by the Chinese delegation to visit Beijing to play an exhibition match with their Chinese counterparts, a significant step by China to reestablish contacts with the US after 20 years of isolation.

Dubbed ping-pong diplomacy, the exchange helped lay the groundwork for the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations and facilitated US President Richard Nixon's visit to China in February 1972.

More than four decades on from the landmark match, ping-pong still plays a vital role in strengthening friendship and collaboration among peoples from all walks of life, and continuously adds new stories to lore of the China-US friendship.

Playing with Ed Lee to warm up, Luo Linquan, consul general at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, said he brought seven Chinese diplomats to hone their ping-pong skills.

"We failed in last year's match, but it won't dampen our enthusiasm for learning from and sharing with the local community about how to play ping-pong, and beyond," he said.

His remarks were answered with cheers and applause from players and spectators alike. The moment reminded me of the 40th anniversary reunion in 2011 in San Francisco of the Chinese and American players who attended the 1971 exhibition match. The then 61-year-old Liang Geliang, a former world champion who played in the 1971 exhibition match, hugged Judy Hoarfrost, then 56, who also played in Beijing. "I'm excited to see you again," Liang said. "Everything we do on one side of the globe impacts on the other side of the globe, so strong and positive ties certainly benefit the two countries," Hoarfrost said.

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com.