It is said that Chinese president Xi Jinping spent about six years in rural areas of Shaanxi province, from 1969 to 1974, after his father was persecuted by extremist groups during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In the spring of 1970, while he was still performing his duties in the neighbouring province of Shanxi (the two are different provinces) there was a commotion; a group of top table tennis champions, who had also earlier been sent to rural areas during the Cultural Revolution, accused as they were of being foreign spies, were suddenly recalled back to Beijing by none other than Premier Zhou Enlai. These players were subsequently asked to prepare to go to Nepal as part of a sports delegation, to participate in the celebration of 50th birth anniversary of king Mahendra in June 1970.

Ivor Montagu, credited for popularising table tennis, is the son of a wealthy English baron. Besides being known as maker of Alfred Hitchcock films and possessing various other talents, he was also a known communist activist. Montagu largely funded the first World Table Tennis Championships in London in 1926 and helped found the International Table Tennis Federation that same year. Montagu became the federation’s president for 40 years. In October 1952, he visited the newly founded People’s Republic of China to help develop the game there. Montagu made sure that table tennis became popular in China. The sport was assured to become a significant attraction after 1959, when the country was able to produce its first ever men's single world champion, Rong Guotuan. Rong received a hero’s welcome when he returned from the games, which were held in Germany. Since then, table tennis, also known as ping pong, was tied to China’s political fabric. The 26th edition of the World Championships was held in Beijing in 1961. China dominated the tournament. The same trend continued in the next two world championships held in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in 1963 and 1965.

Then began the chaotic period of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Due to its internal situation, China didn't send any participants to the next two World Championships, held in 1967 and 1969. During the Munich championships in 1969, it was rumoured that the Chinese players were badly persecuted by the extremists. The first table tennis champion of China, and one other former champion, apparently even committed suicide due to pressures during the revolution. In such a bleak situation, for the players to be recalled from rural work camps to train themselves in Beijing and again to get ready for a journey to Nepal was a pleasant surprise. There was an important hidden agenda for such a shift in the party’s outlook about the table tennis players. Of course, it was the beginning of the carving of an intricate form of diplomacy which was in due course called the ping pong diplomacy.

Here in Nepal, ping pong only gained popularity after the players from China arrived in Nepal in 1970 to play demonstration games on the occasion of the king Mahendra’s birthday. The team included three-time world champion Zhuang Zedong and other famous players including coach Xu Yinsheng, players Xi Ending, Lin Huiqing, Lili and many others. The players stayed in Nepal for more than a week’s time. During this time, they not only played games with their Nepali counterparts and had a cultural tour of the country, but they also had meetings with some high officials. They even had an audience with the king and a meeting with the Nepali prime minister. I was fortunate to have witnessed the exhibition games first-hand. As a beginner in the study of Mandarin, I also had the opportunity to interact with the players. After two years of country life, the players seemed to be quite happy to have this type of experience. Their trip to Nepal made them ready for further exposure in the World Championships of 1971 in Japan and for more diplomatic activities.

Ever since the border war with the Soviet Union in March 1969, the Chinese leaders were trying to realign their international relations. On this front, their good relations with Nepal came in very handy to get their table tennis players an exposure to the international environment before reentering the global stage in Japan. So, the visit to Nepal seemed to have been well utilised as a springboard for their future plans. In all these activities, Nepal was more than happy to cooperate. In return, Nepal got regular coaches from China and also became a founding member of Beijing-based Asian table tennis Union in 1972, among others.

After skipping the two previous world tourneys, China participated in the 31st World Championships in Nagoya, Japan with sufficient advance planning. The Chinese team arrived in Nagoya ready to adhere Premier Zhou’s words of guidance: ‘friendship first, competition second’. The Chinese team played quite well and better than they had expected. On the last day of the matches, an American player called Glenn Cowan missed his bus to the venue of the competition. He was offered a seat in the bus which was carrying the Chinese contingent. In the bus, he became friends with the famous Zhuang Zedong, who offered him a silk scarf, with a picture of Huangshan mountain on it, as a gift. The picture of Zhuang and Glenn together holding the gift while alighting from the bus was printed in the Japanese newspapers. The newfound friendship between the Chinese and American players made a great story, and the Chinese team subsequently extended an invitation to the American team to visit China. It only took 48 hours for the American team to decide on accepting the invitation to visit China. By April 10, 1971, three days after the Nagoya tournament ended, American players had landed in China. This marked the thawing of Sino-US relations, which had been inimical for more than 21 years. The players were given a rousing welcome—even meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai. This opened up the first ever official contact between the two countries. Zhou aptly remarked that the little ping pong ball was intended to move the big ball of global politics. Nixon in his memoirs wrote that he had never expected that the China initiative would come to fruition in the form of a team of table tennis players. In this whole process of ping pong diplomacy, Nepal played a small but crucial role owing to its strong relationship with China at the time.

The ping pong diplomacy led to Henry Kissinger secretly visiting Beijing in July 1971. The chain of events finally culminated in President Nixon’s historic China visit in February 1972. The rest is history.

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