Skip to main content

Great Moments in Sports Diplomacy #1: Reaching Across the Net...

Pic:thetimes.co.uk


These days China-US relations are generally better - South China Sea disputes notwithstanding - than they were in the early 1970's. Then Mao's influence tended to negate friendships with the capitalist superpower, while Nixon's reign in the US was still cowering under the pressure from the omnipotent anti-Red lobby, led by Senator Joe McCarthy.

That relations are relatively benign between the world's two undisputed super-powers has various forces to thank, trade and geo-politics in particular.

But, what occurred in 1971 during a table tennis tournament in Japan was generally considered the first sign of a thaw between the two behemoths. And, it had little to do with political wrangling and more to do with two mutually respectful athletes knocking down the largely artificial barriers that had been placed between them.

It is generally considered that Glenn Cowan, a champion US table tennis player, had missed his team bus after a late training session during the World Championships in Nagoya, Japan in April 1971. Members of the Chinese team, whose bus was just departing, waved the American over and offered him a lift.

Leading Chinese player Zhuang Zedong was one of the players Cowan joined up with and, as they and other Chinese players were communicating as best they could with Cowan, Zhuang went to his bag on the bus and took out a silk print he was carrying with him. The print was a traditional Chinese work from the player's home region (see picture above).

The chance meeting led to a team of US players and officials being invited to China. A few days after the above incident, Chinese and US players competed in friendly games across the country.

The tour led to US President Nixon visiting China on an official state visit in February 1972. This was one of the first formal visits to Maoist China by a Western leader and the first time by a US President. Prior to this visit, the US and China had been incommunicado for 25 years.

In April 1972, a Chinese table tennis team, led by Zhuang Zedong, visited the US.

That such a long, wintery relationship could be so warmed and re-animated by two athletes is testimony to the power of sport to embody humanity's better traits. The spontaneity of the moment and the authenticity of the two central figures, Cowan and Zhuang, only enhanced the significance of a chance meeting brought about by simple respect and sportsmanship.

The world might not have been the same without it.











Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post-UNOSDP - Is the IOC fool's gold?

This is a longer version of an article published on SportandDev.org With the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace closed down by the global body, there is undoubtedly a void in this space in which many of us here work. But, for all the high profile oomph the UNOSDP added to the world of sport for good, it’s passing need not be seen as devastating. For one, the work the UNOSDP has already done in its 16 years of life has laid a platform for the development of sport for social justice. While many of us knew for years that sport had a wider purpose beyond mere business or entertainment, the UNOSDP has provided a base of credibility that may have otherwise taken much longer to establish. While much of the work is, in many ways, still to be done, the UNOSDP has left a positive legacy on which we can all build. More problematic is the shifting of the UNOSDP’s brief to the IOC. Obliging the IOC to administer to the peace and development facets ...
2 comments
Read more

Statement on Funding for the Rohingya Football Club

We are very pleased to announce that The Kick Project has received a $AUD16,500 donation from the Australian Government to fund a pilot soccer program with Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. The funds, coming through the Australian High Commission in Malaysia, will allow the charity to support the Rohingya Football Club which has become a vital part of the exiled Rohingya community in Kuala Lumpur. The program entails kitting out the team, providing transport to games and establishing a sports and community hub where Rohingya people can access sporting equipment and coaching. Young people, and girls in particular, are the long term focus of the initiative. The Kick Project founder James Rose says the Rohingya are in dire need of assistance. "The UN has called the Rohingya arguably the most persecuted group in the world. They've been forced to flee their homelands in Myanmar, where they have been made stateless by government decree, and many have lost their lives...
4 comments
Read more

In these times, find the joy of being human

The election of Donald J Trump as America's 45th President, confirmed in this week's inauguration, presents numerous challenges to human rights and people power. The boorish, misogynistic, arrogant tenor of his campaign has cast a pall over the rights of minorities in America and across the globe as his "America First" call, by definition, puts everyone else second or worse. The only equality in the scenario he presents is of the George Orwell type: that of some being more equal than others. Such a situation already exists of course. Western males wield more direct and indirect power in global terms than, say, a dark-skinned girl in a slum. Trump is hardly breaking new ground. But, his ascendancy gives that dark reality more momentum. It puts it closer to the centre of normal. His message threatens to break the positive values that link human beings to each other. Globally, governments, civil society and civilians need to make a stand. We need to step up to...
1 comment
Read more