296 { China’s Quest
recommendation, going back and forth in his mind. After taking some sleep-
ing pills to get some rest, with the matter still unresolved in his mind, Mao
roused himself to tell his nurse to phone the MFA and direct them to invite
the American team to China. By inviting the US ping-pong team, Mao was
publicly committing China to improved ties with the United States, consider-
ably easing Nixon’s concerns about possible failure and embarrassment in the
radical quest for better ties with China. It also further accustomed China’s
public to the possibility of improved PRC-US ties. Ping-pong also happened
to be a sport in which China was the world leader, allowing China to dis-
play its superiority (in at least this area) before the Americans and the world.
Ping-pong also happened to be a television-friendly game that captured the
mind of the American public. US views of China began to change, becoming
more positive and friendly.
After the ping-pong breakthrough, the pace of high-level communication,
still via the Pakistan channel, picked up. The US side proposed that Kissinger
represent President Nixon in talks in Beijing to “raise the issue of principle
concern to it.” Mao accepted, “with great pleasure,” so Zhou Enlai informed
Kissinger on June 2. The driver of this push for high-level, direct dialogue was
mutual desire to gain strategic advantage by recasting the Cold War interna-
tional order. For China in 1969–1971 that meant primarily deterring Soviet
attack. But, as Henry Kissinger pointed out, as both sides discovered the ex-
tent of their convergent views once the new strategic dialogue had begun, the
new Sino-American relation would grow far beyond the narrow deterrence
calculations that initially inspired it. It would become a major element of an
entirely new international order involving the broad strategic alignment of
the PRC and the United States—much to Moscow’s disadvantage.
Kissinger’s first mission to Beijing in July 1971 was clothed in secrecy to
outmaneuver the many people in Washington, Moscow, and Taipei who were
opposed to improved PRC-US ties. In the midst of an around-the-world trip
and after stops in Guam, Saigon, and Bangkok designed to exhaust media
interest, Kissinger feigned stomach problems during a stop in Islamabad and
conspicuously retired to a remote chateau to recoup. Or so the press was told.
In fact Kissinger was driven directly to a secure and remote military airfield
to fly to Beijing. Waiting aboard the plane was a team of senior and experi-
enced English-speaking diplomats that Zhou Enlai had dispatched to accom-
pany Kissinger’s group on their flight to a strange and unfamiliar destination,
Beijing, thus helping to alleviate any tension or misgivings. The group had
been selected in 1969 shortly after the four marshals’ report suggesting an
opening to the United States.
Zhou Enlai carefully choreographed Kissinger’s visit to make it a success
and to China’s advantage. As with ping-pong diplomacy three months earlier,
hospitality was a part of Zhou’s strategy. When Kissinger’s plane arrived at the
Beijing airport, Marshall Ye Jianying greeted him at the bottom of the ramp.