This document discusses the conflation of cultural diplomacy and warfare through China's table tennis delegation to the United States in the 1970s. It analyzes how the famous "ping-pong diplomacy" visit combined friendship and competition between the two countries during the Cold War era in a way that blurred cultural and military aims. The document examines how sports were used to both build relationships and assert national pride and identity on the global stage.

1. “Winning or Losing is
Temporary, Friendship is
Eternal”:
The Conflation of
Cultural Diplomacy and
Warfare in Chinese
Table Tennis Delegation
in U.S.A.
Travis l. Wagner
The University of South Carolina

10. “The production of such a visual culture was
coordinated by the new socialist state and
predicated on two imperatives: to create an
inspirational visual environment in support of the
socialist revolution, on the one hand, and to invent
fresh national forms by modernizing indigenous
traditions and nativizing imports on the other”
--Xiaobing Tang, Visual Culture in Contemporary China:
Paradigms and Shifts (p. 11)

11. “Be indomitable
in training, to
strengthen the
physique of
officers and
soldiers”

12. Zhuang Zedong
1940-2013