Here's more from the BBC about the 1971 incident that led to pingpong diplomacy:
"The incident that triggered the invitation to the US table tennis team to visit China took place at the world championships in Nagoya, Japan, when [American table tennis player Glenn] Cowan missed his team's bus and was given a ride on the Chinese bus.
"In an interview with Reuters in 2007, Zhuang said his team mates had urged him not to approach the American, but he ignored them.
"Through an interpreter he told Cowan: 'Although the US government is unfriendly to China, the American people are friends of the Chinese. I give you this [a silk portrait] to mark the friendship from Chinese people to the American people.'"
Zhuang, a three-time world champion, was a major sporting figure in China. Photographs of him with Cowan created a stir because of poor relations between their two countries. Following the incident, Chinese leader Mao Zedong ordered the 15-member American team to be invited to China.
Nixon was in China less that a year later, a visit that led to diplomatic ties in 1979.
