Chinese ‘ping-Pong’ envoy dies

China’s table tennis legend Zhuang Zedong, who played a key role in initiating the famous ping-pong diplomacy with the US leading to the then President Richard Nixon’s ice breaking visit to Beijing in 1972, died here on Sunday. He was 73. Zhuang had been suffering from cancer and his condition grew worse last July and had developed complications from liver failure. Zhuang, who won a horde of events in the 1960s, is famed for his chance meeting with a US table tennis player Glenn Cowan during the 31st World Table Tennis Championships in 1971 in Japan. The ping-pong initiative coupled with high-profile diplomacy by the then US Secretary Henry Kissinger with Chinese leaders culminated in the visit of Nixon.