On April 10, 1971, the US table tennis delegation visited China, breaking the ice in Sino-American relations – an engagement now remembered as Ping-Pong Diplomacy. Marking its 55th anniversary, Yale professor Odd Arne Westad, a renowned historian and global Cold War scholar, obserbves that, unfortunately, people-to-people exchanges between the two countries are declining today. History shows that sports and cultural links can steer state relations toward positive interaction, and he believes such exchanges should be allowed to develop naturally rather than be restricted.