The University of Michigan in China

Ping-Pong Takes Center Stage

The chance for rapprochement came in 1971, at the World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan. The location made for less-­than-­neutral territory for the two nations—­for two decades, the PRC had maintained a radio silence toward both the United States and Japan. But with some maneuvering, Zhou Enlai secured an invitation for the Chinese team from the Japanese table tennis organization.

The US and PRC teams couldn’t have been more different. The US ping-pong team was a ragtag assortment of amateur enthusiasts—­table tennis hadn’t achieved the nationwide popularity in the States that it had in China. Instead, it was a basement pastime, a game hastily set up in seedy bars or recreation clubs. Tournaments, when they happened, didn’t draw anywhere near the massive crowds that football, baseball, or basketball drew. The US team varied widely in age and experience, from 15-­year-­old Judy Bochenski to adult professionals working at IBM and the United Nations (Griffin 181): “The United States Table Tennis Association (USTTA) was still too poor to send a team, and the players were paying their own way”; Judy Bochenski’s father had to borrow $900 from the bank for her airfare (180–­181).

The official team from the People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, was a finely honed instrument trained and sponsored by the government. For the Chinese team, sport and politics had long been intertwined. As early as Rong Guotan’s victory at the 1959 World Championships in Germany, winning games had become a method of communication to both the outside world and Chinese citizens exhausted by decades of war and adjusting to the norms of a new ideology. The message to both internal and external parties was clear: New China was a strong nation capable of competing on an international stage; Maoist policies were working. Mao himself “called ping-pong China’s new ‘spiritual nuclear weapon’” (Griffin 85). As the Chinese ping-pong team began to win major victories, they became national celebrities, symbols of prosperity and vitality in years otherwise marked by privation. Association with top-­level members of the CCP such as He Long and Zhou Enlai sheltered the team from the worst of the famine of the Great Leap Forward. And although their celebrity statuses had made them prime targets for persecution during the Cultural Revolution, by the time the World Championships in Nagoya came around, the Chinese team was still one of the most formidable ping-pong organizations in the world.

From a competitive standpoint, the United States had almost no chance of success in Nagoya: they were “ranked twenty-­third in the world” and, according to Tim Boggan, vice president of the USTTA, “‘there were no expectations’” (Griffin 181). Soon even the stars of the US team had dropped out of the major brackets, and many spent their time “sightseeing” (182). The Chinese team, however, had “scraped off the rust” accumulated after years of manual labor during the Cultural Revolution to take home the Swaythling Cup for their men’s team; in the singles competition, star player and previous World Champion Zhuang Zedong withdrew from the tournament before facing a Cambodian player, saying that he would not “compete against ‘players who represent governments [that are] enemies of the Cambodian and Vietnamese people . . . puppets of US imperialism’” (186–­187).

Group photograph of the Chinese table tennis team in America, April 1972. Zhuang Zedong is pictured on the bottom row in the light-colored jacket. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

While such a statement might have played well into the political climate at home in China, it did not bode well for the possibility of rapprochement. All it took, however, were two chance encounters to open a crack in the diplomatic door. Both encounters revolved around a young American named Glenn Cowan, a long-­haired product of the counterculture movements that had shaped the 1960s in the United States.

Compared to the rest of the US and Chinese players, Cowan stood out as if draped in neon. He idolized Mick Jagger, wasn’t shy about smoking pot, and had a natural instinct for both ping-pong and showmanship. In what would soon become internationally recognized as a kind of accidental, slacker diplomacy, during one practice session, Cowan waved over a young Chinese player, Liang Geliang, to practice together. “Liang thought of his invitation as ‘almost an insult,’ an American attempt to hoodwink him because he was so young. Liang retreated to ask an official what he should do” and in the end practiced with Cowan for a few rounds before bowing out (Griffin 187).

This whim invitation brought Cowan under Chinese scrutiny; he became “convinced that the Chinese were watching him.” Some days later, Cowan left the gymnasium after practice and boarded the bus idling outside, presuming that it was one of the transport shuttles. Only once the doors had shut behind him did Cowan realize his mistake—­he was facing the entirety of the Chinese team: “All agree that there followed minutes of silence, other than the mechanical roar of a large bus changing gears. Cowan was in a country where he couldn’t even read a street sign with players representing a supposedly hostile nation” (Griffin 188). After several uncomfortable moments, Cowan broke the ice, speaking through the translator aboard the bus:

By all accounts, Cowan’s presence and words caused some consternation on the bus—­“the orders had been strict back in Beijing: Americans could be greeted politely, but they were the only country at the World Championships with whom the Chinese players shouldn’t shake hands” (Griffin 189). Still, Zhuang Zedong, top player on the Chinese team, stood up at the back of the bus and approached Glenn Cowan. With one hand, he offered Cowan a gift, a landscape portrait of the Huangshan Mountains; with the other, he shook Cowan’s hand. Reporters and cameras awaited the team as they stepped off the bus, and by the next day, photographs of the two smiling players made the rounds in international newspapers.

The visibly friendly exchange, followed by a return gift from Cowan a day later (a T-shirt emblazoned with a peace sign and the Beatles’ lyrics “Let It Be”), sparked a furious round of behind-­the-­scenes diplomacy at the highest levels of government. Mao himself, 74 years old and seriously ill, issued the order to invite the American team to China. The order was relayed through Mao to the head of the Chinese delegation in Nagoya, who passed it on to the US delegate to the International Table Tennis Federation, who checked in with the US Embassy in Tokyo asking permission to accept the invitation: “‘Just go,’ came the immediate answer” (Griffin 197).

They went. The US team spent their week in China touring, sightseeing, and playing exhibition matches, all the while accompanied by some of the first American reporters allowed into the country in decades. They were welcomed with a mixture of hostility and hospitality. At one match, banners in the crowd carried mixed messages: “Welcome American Team,” read one; “Down with the Yankee Oppressors and Their Running Dogs,” read another (Griffin 217). Later, someone in a crowd threw a stone at some of the team members; meanwhile, they were invited to meet with Zhou Enlai himself, who spent part of the evening chatting with Glenn Cowan.

On their return to Hong Kong, the Americans were mobbed by members of the press hungry for interviews, and a poll in the United States revealed “for the first time ever, the number of Americans in favor of China’s inclusion in the United Nations had vaulted to a positive majority” (Griffin 227).

Alexander Eckstein, the University of Michigan, and the Open Door of Diplomacy

The US team’s friendly visit to the People’s Republic was all the two countries needed to begin the process of rapprochement. A public statement from President Nixon expressing a desire to someday visit China led to his top foreign adviser, Henry Kissinger, making a secret trip behind the back of the secretary of state to meet with Zhou Enlai in Beijing. It was a momentous exchange, done when public opinion about renewed relations was mixed in both countries. The results of the trip soon became apparent: formal sanctions against China were eased, including trade and travel restrictions, and in the summer of 1971, Nixon himself appeared on television to announce that he would travel in person to meet with Mao Zedong the following year.

More than two decades of conflict and state silence between two nations were thawing at last. Soon the United States would vote to replace the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the UN with the People’s Republic. All that was left to do was invite the Chinese ping-pong team to the United States for a reciprocal visit. For Graham Steenhoven, president of the USTTA, this invitation presented a practical as much as a political problem. He only had the week of the US team’s visit to China to make the invitation, and given that the team’s visit preceded Kissinger’s and Nixon’s, he couldn’t rely on official support from the US government. Unlike the Chinese team, Steenhoven and the USTTA lacked funding. They hadn’t even paid for their own team’s travel expenses to Nagoya—­how were they going to fund the entire Chinese team’s travel, housing, and food costs for an extended tour of the United States?

This problem came to the attention of one Alexander Eckstein. Yugoslavian by birth, Eckstein had served as an intelligence officer during World War II before receiving his PhD from the University of California in 1952. Over the course of his career, Eckstein worked as a consultant to the US Department of State and taught at several universities, including Harvard. By the time he heard of Steenhoven’s problem, Eckstein was teaching economics at the University of Michigan as a “China specialist”; he also happened to be the chairman of the National Committee on United States–­China Relations (Eckstein, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” 328). While members of Congress did sometimes call on the National Committee to deliver briefings or write memos, it was a civilian, nongovernmental organization.

This meant that the committee, unlike the US government, could help Steenhoven. Eckstein “immediately arranged a telephone conference with the officers of the National Committee, who unanimously agreed that the organization would find a way to raise all the needed funds and cosponsor a visit of the Chinese team to the United States.” They set to work even before the US team’s trip to China had concluded, raising funds, planning an itinerary, and contacting cities and universities that might be willing to host the Chinese team. Steenhoven made his formal invitation and received a favorable response from Zhou Enlai: “I believe that this new beginning of our friendship will win support from most people in both our countries” (Eckstein, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” 328).

And then, silence from China. Eight months passed with no word as to when or if the Chinese team actually planned on coming. It wasn’t until January 1972, as the groundwork was being laid for Nixon’s visit, that word came from Zhou Enlai that the Chinese team would visit “when the flowers are in full bloom” (Eckstein, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” 329). A less cryptic cable from the Chinese Table Tennis Association followed two months later—­the team would be visiting on April 10.

The nine-­city tour began in Michigan. The plane touched down at an airport in Ypsilanti, hometown of Gertrude Howe, who a century earlier had helped Kang Cheng and Shi Meiyu make their way to the University of Michigan for a medical education (see chapter 3). Awaiting its arrival was the entire US team, looking “positively shiny in their new uniforms . . . They looked like the crew of a cruise ship.” As Zhuang Zedong disembarked, he reunited with Glenn Cowan; eager journalists snapped photos of the two men, arms raised, hands clasped, beaming with delight, and “the music . . . suddenly changed to a brassy version of ‘She’ll Be Coming ’round the Mountain When She Comes’” (Griffin 243). Alexander Eckstein and the National Committee were on hand to make a formal welcome. In his address, Eckstein wrote,

Portrait of Alexander Eckstein, professor of economics at the University of Michigan and expert on China policy. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

Fruitful and enjoyable—­by all accounts the visit was both, if intermittently. As with the US team’s visit to China, the best-­laid diplomatic plans were occasionally disrupted by cultural differences and activist interventions. The Chinese team bristled, for example, at a mistranslated sign prepared by a sixth-­grader that mistakenly welcomed the “Republic of China” instead of the People’s Republic; another cultural gaffe occurred on the team’s first evening when, visiting the mayor of Detroit, the mayor waited to greet the team “at the first floor doorway” rather than walking out to meet them on the street (Eckstein, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” 331). Such moments of tension were entirely accidental, but the Chinese delegation did face some deliberate resistance. During one exhibition match, a group of right-­wing protesters dropped paper parachutes carrying dead mice on the audience, including one dressed in a red coat labeled “Kissinger”; others had pasted up posters that read, “Give us back our POWs” (Griffin 245) and “Keep your Ping Pong Players” (Eckstein, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” 333).

Still, there were just as many moments of warmth. Ruth Eckstein, wife of Alexander, recalled that “the team’s visit to Ann Arbor was very heartwarming. As the bus drove through campus, students recognized the Chinese, waved and cheered loudly.” Out on the campus lawn, the Chinese team crossed paths with American students playing Frisbee. On impulse, they gave their disc to one of the Chinese players; compelled to give a return gift, he gave the only thing he had to hand: an orange from the University of Michigan cafeteria: “As the bus drove away, the Michigan undergraduate stood with the orange cupped in his hands, looking at it as if it were made of solid gold” (Eckstein, “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” 334).

As for the actual ping-pong, the theme long ago crafted by Zhou Enlai and repeated now by Zhuang Zedong was “Friendship first, competition second.” A good thing too—­despite their new uniforms, the American team was so outmatched by the Chinese that the disparity was evident even to the Michigan Daily, the student-­run newspaper of the University of Michigan. “Gracious guests that they were,” the Daily wrote, “[the Chinese team] carried their weaker American hosts in order to leave an air of competition to the proceedings.”

The rest of the tour took the Chinese team to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, a re-­creation of early life in America; to Washington, DC, where President Nixon echoed Zhou Enlai’s hope that the sporting competition would lead to friendship between the two nations; and across the country to California and Disneyland, where “‘they were greeted by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto and a six piece band’ and got dizzy riding in swirling giant teacups. . . . A year before, real Russian warheads had been aimed at Beijing. How quickly life could change” (Griffin 253).

And by the end of the tour, it was clear that life between the two countries had changed. Nixon had become the first US president to visit China while in office. The United States had not blocked the PRC’s appointment to the United Nations Security Council. And in 1979, President Carter would oversee the formal resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. As the Chinese ping-pong team’s tour of the United States came to a close and the players parted ways at the airport, “genuine tears flowed on both sides. . . . They weren’t the tears of indelible friendships but the recognition that something remarkable had happened” (Griffin 255). A pebble that began a landslide, the reverberations of ping-­pong diplomacy shaped the geopolitical landscape for decades to come, altering the power dynamics of the Cold War and, in some small part, making room for a new era of reform in China.

Donald Munro (second from left) in 1961 with his mentor Liu Yu-yun (second from right), whom they affectionately called “the Prince” for his relationship to the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. Photograph courtesy of Donald J. Munro.

A student in China photographed during the American Educator’s delegation to China in 1973. Photograph courtesy of Donald J. Munro.

Following Alexander Eckstein’s successful efforts in orchestrating the final return volley of ping-­pong diplomacy, the University of Michigan eagerly reengaged with China. In 1973, Eckstein’s colleague and professor of Chinese philosophy Donald Munro co-­led one of the earliest delegations of American educators to visit the People’s Republic. By 1979–­1980, although their numbers hadn’t yet recovered the heights of the prewar years, the PRC was at least represented on the year’s registrar report; the groundwork had been laid for what has become, in the 21st century, an inseparable partnership between the institution and the nation.

Works Cited

• Eckstein, Alexander. “Welcome to the Chinese Table Tennis Team.” 12 April 1972. Alexander Eckstein Papers, Bentley Historical Library, U of Michigan.
• Eckstein, Ruth. “Ping-Pong Diplomacy: A View from behind the Scenes.” Journal of American-­East Asian Relations 2.3 (1993): 327–­342. Print.
• Griffin, Nicholas. Ping-Pong Diplomacy: Ivor Montagu and the Astonishing Story behind the Game That Changed the World. London: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
• Report of the Office of the Registrar. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1966. Print.
• Report of the Office of the University Registrar. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1980. Print.
• Report of the Registrar of the University. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1940. Print.
• Report of the Registrar of the University. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1955. Print.