China’s strongest man nonetheless will get letters from an aged pen pal within the US Midwest.
The interplay was documented in a Wednesday state media report highlighting Xi Jinping’s ideas on US-China diplomacy. The main focus was on Xi’s phrases, the place he highlighted how each nations have achieved diplomatic victories via the “collective efforts” of their peoples, he mentioned.
However the report additionally mentions that Xi was responding to a letter despatched final week from Sarah Lande. She’s an Iowa resident, 85, who state media described as a “buddy of his.”
Lande is not just a few random American. She and her husband, Roger Lande, are from Muscatine, a small metropolis of 24,000 that Xi visited in 1985.
Three many years earlier than he rose to develop into China’s high chief, a then-31-year-old Xi visited the state to review agriculture as a part of a five-person delegation from Hebei province.
A household in Muscatine hosted Xi of their son’s bed room, and he befriended the Landes throughout his journey. Sarah Lande, who, per Chinese language state media company Xinhua, helped coordinate Xi’s go to, appeared to recollect him fondly.
“He had a smile that will not cease. He was inquisitive about the whole lot and requested questions on the whole lot,” she mentioned of Xi, based on a Xinhua interview revealed final 12 months.
Xi visited Iowa as soon as extra in 2012, this time throughout a state go to as China’s vice chairman. There, he reunited with the Landes at their Victorian residence in Muscatine. A 12 months later, he was appointed to China’s high function.
“You have been the primary group of Individuals I got here into contact with,” Xi informed residents of Muscatine, per state media. “To me, you might be America.”
SHAUN TANDON/AFP through Getty Photos
Then, in 2023, Xi arrived in San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation (APEC) summit. He invited the Landes and a number of other different “outdated pals” from Iowa to dinner.
“This has been a heck of a journey — we won’t determine it out. We do not even know why he likes us!” Lande mentioned when she acquired the invitation.
“However we’re keen to fulfill with him, too. We’re common, on a regular basis individuals,” she mentioned.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP through Getty Photos
The pair have exchanged letters earlier than. Xi wrote to Lande in 2022, additionally speaking about ties between their nations and praising Iowa.
“The Chinese language and American individuals are each nice individuals, and our friendship isn’t solely a precious asset but additionally an essential basis for the event of bilateral relations,” Xi wrote.
The Chinese language chief has lately been making an attempt to financial institution on the nostalgia of his pleasant journey to the US all these years in the past.
Whereas talking to President Joe Biden on the APEC summit, Xi was introduced with a photograph of his youthful self posing in entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge — which he visited in 1985.
“Have you learnt this younger man?” Biden mentioned, based on a China Overseas Ministry spokesperson’s retelling.
“Oh sure, this was 38 years in the past,” Xi mentioned.
Beijing’s overseas delegates promoted the snippet, which went viral on Chinese language social media.
The US-China relationship, nonetheless, hasn’t been as rosy as Xi and Lande’s. The previous 12 months has seen each nations enmeshed in a number of tense army encounters which have soured relations to a few of their worst ranges in historical past.
In February, the US shot down a Chinese language surveillance balloon after it flew over US territory. Then, in Could, there was a shut encounter between a US spy aircraft and a Chinese language jet over the South China Sea.
The US has additionally sought to curb China’s technological developments when it imposed export controls for the semiconductor trade in October.
Representatives for China’s overseas ministry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider despatched exterior common enterprise hours.
