AT THE Zhongguancun No 4 primary school in Beijing yesterday eight middle-aged Americans were playing their Chinese counterparts at table tennis.

At first sight it was just another tour of China by a sports team from the West, except that these were not any old Americans. They were the people who made such visits possible. Thirty-five years ago they were the ping-pong diplomats who ended the breach between America and Mao Zedong’s China.

“At that moment I didn’t realise we were making history,” Connie Sweeris, who was 15, said. It was only when she returned home to a media frenzy that she began to understand.

In 1971 the US and Chinese teams were both competing in the first World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan. Washington and Beijing had not had diplomatic relations since the Communist Party swept to power in 1949, but the team members began to talk and the Americans said how much they would love to visit China.

Washington and Beijing had already been taking clandestine soundings of each other through third parties. China seized the moment. Chairman Mao approved the idea of inviting the American table tennis players at midnight on April 6. Within days the team was playing exhibition matches in China and dining with Premier Zhou Enlai at the Great Hall of the People. President Nixon later referred to that six-day tour as “the week that changed the world”.

Three months later he sent Henry Kissinger, his Secretary of State, on a secret mission to Beijing.

In February 1972 Nixon became the first American President to visit the Chinese capital. Diplomatic relations were finally restored in 1979.

Ping-pong diplomacy had paid handsome dividends, and a year after the US team’s visit to Beijing a Chinese team toured America.

Zhang Xielin, a member of the original Chinese team, was also playing yesterday. The white-haired veteran laughed at the memory of how he had had to treat the Americans gently. “This was about friendship first, so we couldn’t defeat the Americans leaving them to score zero. We had to give them some face,” he said. “Chairman Mao had given his signature to the visit. We knew this was a very important moment in our history.”

Ms Sweeris agreed that the skills of the US players could not enable them compete with the Chinese. But, then, that tour was not about winning at sport.

Tim Boggan, another member of the American team, remembered Zhou as the epitome of the urbane, sophisticated politician. He also reminisced about the sumptuous banquets. “We all knew that this was a very symbolic moment,” he said.

Today the Chinese economy is booming, Western politicians, businessmen and tourists flock to Beijing and other cities, and the US and Chinese presidents meet regularly — despite periodic frostiness over such contentious issues as trade, Taiwan, defence and human rights. Last year President Bush flew to Beijing; next month Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, is to pay his first visit to Washington.

Ms Sweeris, whose enthusiasm for the game is undimmed, expressed amazement at how much China had changed. In 1971 everyone still wore blue Mao suits.

The visit this week by the American ping-pong diplomats is sponsored not only by the China Table Tennis Association, but also by a Chinese fashion business.

CHINESE CHANGES

Mao decreed that a new style of clothing, the utilitarian Mao suit, be worn in his new republic. The shell suit is now popular and Chinese Vogue helps people choose between Gucci, Chanel and Armani.

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