Reflecting on 50th anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy on both sides of the Pacific amid stalemate in

American player Glenn Cowan (right) shakes hands with Chinese player Zhuang Zedong(center) after getting off a bus for Chinese players during the 31st World Table Tennis Championships on April 4, 1971 in Nagoya, Japan. Glenn Cowan, who missed a bus for his own team, accidentally boarded a bus for Chinese players, which led to a domino of events that saw the normalization the China-US relationship. File photo: VCG

Half a century ago, no one expected the visit of a group of American table tennis players to China would change the global landscape so dramatically. Now, with China and the US back in a period of such uncertainty in relations as observers point to almost a new Cold War, many observers are seeking signs whether something similar to the ping-pong diplomacy could be found to break the ice for the world's most important bilateral relations.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy. April 10 was when the American players arrived in Beijing half a century ago, prior to which China and the US had no official contact at all for more than two decades. 

It is a historic occasion that both the Chinese and the Americans at the public level wouldn't miss to talk about and commemorate, indicating the efforts from both sides to try to break the current stalemate in the China-US relationship which to some degree resembles what it was 50 years ago.  

"The competition is equally intense, but the interdependence is much greater and that requires cooperation at the same time as competition," Joseph Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus and former Dean of the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, told the Global Times in an email interview.