Improbable Diplomats
How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations

A unique account of how Chinese and American athletes, scientists, and artists rebuilt US-China relations in the 1970s.

Pete Millwood (Author)

9781108837439, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 December 2022

336 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.9 cm, 0.73 kg

'Richly documented and nuancedly argued, this transnational history explores exchanges in sports, culture, science and technology that have reshaped US-China relations and the world we live in today.' Zuoyue Wang, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

In 1971, Americans made two historic visits to China that would transform relations between the two countries. One was by US official Henry Kissinger; the other, earlier, visit was by the US table tennis team. Historians have mulled over the transcripts of Kissinger's negotiations with Chinese leaders. However, they have overlooked how, alongside these diplomatic talks, a rich program of travel and exchange had begun with ping-pong diplomacy. Improbable Diplomats reveals how a diverse cast of Chinese and Americans – athletes and physicists, performing artists and seismologists – played a critical, but to date overlooked, role in remaking US-China relations. Based on new sources from more than a dozen archives in China and the United States, Pete Millwood argues that the significance of cultural and scientific exchanges went beyond reacquainting the Chinese and American people after two decades of minimal contact; exchanges also powerfully influenced Sino-American diplomatic relations and helped transform post-Mao China.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Prologue: Chinese and US Cold War-Era Exchange Diplomacy before the Nixon Era
1. By Popular Demand
2. Ping-Pong Diplomacy's Return Leg and After
3. New Liaisons
4. Familiarity Breeds Contempt
5. Asking for More in Exchange
6. Political Science
Epilogue: The New Normal
Conclusion: Ties That Bind?
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP], History [HB]