A New Sphere of Influence: Table Tennis Diplomacy and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations

Abstract

Prominent China studies academics who, with the assistance of members of the business and religious communities, founded the National Committee on United States-China Relations (ncuscr) in 1966 did not build it to last. Its leaders foresaw the organization’s work as “catalytic” and envisioned that it would be “going out of business as soon as possible.” By March 1971, with a new era of U.S. relations with China on the horizon, its leaders saw little reason to continue operations, and seriously contemplated closing up shop. Yet that April, the government of the People’s Republic of China hosted the U.S. Table Tennis team, and pledged to have its team make a reciprocal visit to the United States the following year, which the ncuscr funded and organized. This visit’s controversies mirrored the previous ideological divides the group had weathered. Conservative anti-Communist protesters and pro-Taiwan activists disrupted the earliest public events, but antiwar demonstrators, who appeared at later exhibition matches to protest President Richard M. Nixon’s bombing of Haiphong in North Vietnam, soon superseded them. Despite these pitfalls, the visit proved to be a great success for the nsuscr, which received a new lease on life and gained a renewed sense of purpose.