Junior minister Martin Cullen was in Beijing for the St Patrick's Day Ball in the Great Wall Sheraton last Saturday.
The Minister and his officials stayed at the China World Hotel, half an hour's stroll from Tiananmen Square. Cullen was greatly surprised and impressed when, strolling down the corridor, he walked straight into the former US secretary of State, Henry Kissinger who was in China for the 30th anniversary of the historic 1971 trip by an American table tennis team. That trip paved the way for the normalisation of relations between Washington and Beijing and eventually the visit by Richard Nixon. The Chinese state media made a huge fuss of Kissinger. He was pictured on the front page of the official People's Daily newspaper, beaming as he played a game of ping-pong with one of the Chinese vicepremiers, Li Lanqing.
Our man, however, missed the ball. He failed to have his picture taken with Kissinger.