About the Author: Beatrice Camp serves as U.S. Consul General at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, China.

Forty years ago this week, a small U.S. delegation visited China to help ease tensions between Washington and Beijing through rather unorthodox means. On April 10, 1971, nine American table tennis players, four officials, two spouses, and 10 journalists crossed a bridge from Hong Kong into mainland China to usher in the age of “Ping Pong Diplomacy.” Eight days of cultural exchange contributed to a thaw in bilateral relations. In February 1972, President Richard Nixon traveled to the People’s Republic of China. At a welcome banquet in Beijing, Premier Zhou Enlai praised the U.S. table tennis team for opening “a new chapter in the relations of the American and Chinese people.”

New chapters in this relationship are being written every day. During the second annual U.S.-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and… more »