Source: China State Council Information Office
A special event was held on Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Ping-Pong Diplomacy between China and the United States.
At the conclusion of the 31st World Championships in Nagoya, Japan, at the invitation of the Chinese table tennis team, the U.S. table tennis team arrived on April 10, 1971, to commence their visit to China, becoming the first U.S. group to visit since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
The Chinese team paid a return visit the following year. The mutual visits broke the ice in two decades of estranged Sino-U.S. relations and eventually led to the normalization of bilateral ties.