Ping-pong diplomacy: 40 years later

A reception in New York commemorated the 40th anniversary of "ping-pong diplomacy" -- the series of history-making reciprocal visits by the US and Chinese national table tennis teams.

The August 28th reception at the Chinese consulate in New York brought together hundreds of guests from both countries who had witnessed the exchanges, including Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, Jan Berris, vice president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, Consul General Sun Guoxiang and George Brathwaite, a member of the US table tennis team that visited China in 1971.

The term "ping-pong diplomacy" describes exchanges in the early 1970s of table tennis players between the United States and China in hope of normalizing the countries' strained relations at that time.

Reporter: Yuhan Liu & Chen Weihua

Photo : Haidan Hu

Video: Yuhan Liu

Script Supervisor: Joseph Boris

Supervising Producer: Calvin Zhou

Senior Producer: Larry Lee & Ji Tao