10 jun 1971 año - US lifts embargo against China - result of Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Descripción:

In the years since Mao Zedong’s communist revolution in 1949, relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States had been clouded by Cold War propaganda, trade embargos and diplomatic silence. The two superpowers had met on the battlefield during the Korean War, but no official American delegation had set foot in the People’s Republic in over 20 years.
By 1971, however, both nations were looking to open a dialogue with one another. Richard Nixon wrote “We simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations.”

During the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, 19-year-old U.S. player Glenn Cowan was put on the Chinese team, as seen in the picture. Chinese players were initially told to avoid any contact with Americans, however Chairman Mao shocked the world by inviting them to make an all-expense paid visit to China. They had a trip around China and later, on the 10th of June, President Nixon announced that the United States was easing its travel bans and trade embargos against China. This helped American-Chinese relations, as well as strike a blow against the Soviet Union that had soured its Chinese alliance, as Mao believed that an alliance with the USA may serve as a deterrent to Russians.

Añadido al timeline:

fecha:

Fotos: