Zhuang Zedong, Chinese 'ping-pong diplomacy' player, dies

Chinese table-tennis player Zhuang Zedong, who had an instrumental role in the so-called ping-pong diplomacy that led to a thaw in US-China relations in the 1970s, has died aged 73.

Zhuang's gift of a silk portrait to US player Glenn Cowan in Japan in 1971 triggered events that led to a US team touring China in April that year.

In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first US president to visit communist China.

The visit opened China to the outside world and shifted the Cold War balance.

Nixon called his visit to China "the week that changed the world".

The US and China normalised ties in 1979.

Zhuang was a three-time world champion and a huge sporting figure in China in the 1960s.

He became sports minister in his 30s and was appointed a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

However, following Mao's death in 1976 and the speedy ousting of the so-called "Gang of Four", which included Mao's widow Jiang Qing, Zhuang was detained and not allowed to play table-tennis.

He only returned to Beijing from internal exile in 1985.

He married Chinese-born Japanese woman, Sasaki Atsuko, in 1987.

Cowan died in 2004.