The Great Chop Forward

It is one of the anomalies of the post-war period that for more than 20 years two of the world's three great powers have refused to mingle. Historians will one day ponder the fear of contagion that prevented the U.S. and China from exchanging diplomats or scholars, or from trading officially in even so innocuous an item as firecrackers. They may be even more perplexed by the fact that when the barriers were finally breached, it was done by Ping Pong players. This week the U.S. table-tennis party of ten men and five women is in China at the invitation of Peking. Seven U.S.-employed newsmen also were admitted.

President Nixon deserves some credit for being the first U.S. President to extend a conciliatory hand to Mao's China. He eliminated the U.S. ban on travel to China, and had the temerity to call China by its legal name. But the great chop forward was executed by the superb play of the Chinese table-tennis champions at world competition in Nagoya, Japan (see SPORT). Peking obviously saw no danger of humiliation in inviting the American team, which ranked about midway in the 54-nation field, to play exhibition matches in several Chinese cities, with all expenses paid by Chairman Mao's paddle-minded government. Yet it is a bit unsettling to think that a historic new Open Door policy may have been created by an expert flick of the wrist or that sport was purposely subverted to the uses of diplomacy.

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