Karen CHRISTENSEN
The Chinese Ping-Pong team in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York, 1972. When they arrived in Detroit, the Chinese team was bemused at the sight of a welcoming crowd of people waving Mao’s “Little Red Book.” COURTESY OF NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR UNITED STATES–CHINA RELATIONS.
In 1971, Ping-Pong—the “ping heard round the world”—helped to create the first person-to-person, and then diplomatic, ties between two Cold War enemies: China and
