Sasaki Atsuko (L) takes care of her husband Zhuang Zedong (C) in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 10, 2013. Zhuang Zedong, a former Chinese table tennis player known for his participation in Sino-U.S. Ping-Pong Diplomacy in the 1970s, died at the age of 73 in Beijing on Feb. 10, 2013. (Xinhua/Tang Shizeng)
Zhuang Zedong, a former Chinese table tennis player known for his participation in Sino-U.S. ping-pong diplomacy in the 1970s, died at the age of 73 on Sunday.
During a championship game held in Japan in 1971, U.S. table tennis player Glenn Cowan rode on the Chinese team's bus and came to know Zhuang after chatting with him.
Later, the Chinese government invited the U.S. ping-pong team to visit China. The tour, later described as "ping-pong diplomacy," eventually led to a visit by the then U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972 and the subsequent normalization of Sino-U.S. diplomatic ties in 1979.
Zhuang, born in Yangzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province, became one of the world's best ping-pong players in 1960s.
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