Ping-pong diplomacy gives way to noodles and fisticuffs

By Andreas Landwehr Aug 19, 2011, 17:24 GMT

Beijing - While US Vice President Joe Biden was winning over Chinese hearts with his 'noodle diplomacy,' a friendly between basketball teams from the two countries ended in a punch-up.

The game between the Chinese military team Bayi Rockets and the Georgetown Hoyas from Washington had to be called off well before it ended on Thursday evening, as fists flew, and players traded kicks and attacked each other with chairs.

Where table tennis helped to promote ties between the two countries in the 1970s, an exchange of teams helping to pave the way for Richard Nixon to become the first US president to visit China in 1972, Biden's basketball players have been less successful.

Chinese fans threw full water bottles at the US players and their trainers as they retreated to the changing rooms.

At the start of his five-day visit to China, Biden had watched a similar game the previous evening in which the Hoyas took on another Chinese side. The friendly ended with a US victory - and without untoward incident.

The next day, the vice president played the role of man of the people. Accompanied by his daughter-in-law and granddaughter, Biden took international relations to a noodle restaurant and ordered the well known Beijing dish Zhajiangmian - noodles with a dark sauce of soybean paste and a little minced meat.

Biden forked out 79 yuan (12.40 dollars) plus a generous tip, making up the amount to 100 yuan. The tip of 21 yuan was seen as unusual in China, but was 'in line with American tradition', as the vice president stressed.

The US embassy related the tale of the restaurant meal using a popular microblog similar to Twitter. Within 24 hours there were 22,000 comments.

Many Chinese commentators used the site to express praise of how thrifty US politicians were with taxpayers' money, in sharp contrast to their wasteful Chinese counterparts.

Statesmanlike opulence was resumed that evening at a banquet. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to take over as the new head of state and Communist Party at the next changing of the guard next year, had invited his US guest to the Great Hall of the People.

The chief purpose of the Biden visit, apart from appeasing Chinese concerns as the largest US creditor, is to build up a good relationship with the new Chinese leader.

Despite all the many difference on Taiwan and Tibet, both sides agreed to aim for greater cooperation between their two large economies in the face of the financial turbulence in global markets.

These good intentions took a serious knock that same evening, however, in Beijing's Olympic Sports Centre, not far from the Great Hall.

Especially as the games being played by the basketball team from Washington travelling alongside the vice president had been intended 'to expand exchanges between the people of both countries and to enhance relations between China and the United States.'

A full nine minutes before the end of the hotly contested game, with the score on 64 each, a confrontation erupted between the US student team and the People's Liberation Army league team.

It was not clear who had started the fight, but it began with pushing and shoving following a foul committed by a Chinese player. The official, and heavily censored, state media were silent on the episode the next day. Fisticuffs are not uncommon in Chinese basketball games, after all.

But the Xinjingbao newspaper printed comments from spectators who blamed the referee for not controlling the game properly.

To ensure that the incident did not overshadow the visit, on Friday morning the two teams held 'an extremely warm and friendly meeting' as part of a reconciliation exercise.

Trainers and players shook hands, the US team members said. But more than one observer suggested that in its diplomatic relations with China, when it came to sport the US should perhaps stick to ping-pong.

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