Judging by the euphoria over Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's successful China visit — a delegation of 1,000 businessmen, talks and banquets with China's top leaders — it is clear that Beijing puts much weight on its relations with Canberra. But it was not always like that. Indeed, but for a chance call to a small Nagoya manufacturer in 1971, it is quite likely relations would have stayed in deep freeze for several decades and would never have reached the warmth they have today.

The story begins on a cold, wet morning in March 1971. The world table tennis championships in Nagoya have just ended and most of the participating teams have responded to invitations to visit Beijing. It is the beginning of then-Premier Zhou Enlai's "pingpong diplomacy," which was finally to drag China out of its Cultural Revolution morass.

But one team is not joining the rush to China — Australia's. Based in Tokyo at the time, I set out to find out why. By chance I locate the team's leader, Dr. John Jackson, visiting that Nagoya manufacturer, only to be told that his team alone had not received any invitation from China.