Xi's ties with Iowa remain strong

Xi Jinping presents the granddaughter of his old friend Sarah Lande with a panda doll in Muscatine, a small city in Iowa, the United States, Feb 15, 2012. In 2012, when Xi returned to Muscatine, he told those who had gathered, whom he has affectionately referred to as "old friends": "You were the first group of Americans that I came into contact with. Sarah Lande, an 85-year-old Muscatine resident who helped coordinate Xi's 1985 visit and met with him, also recalled that Xi told the friends gathered in 2012, "To me, you are America." Xi wrote in a letter to Lande, who is also author of a 2022 memoir titled Old Friends: The Xi Jinping-Iowa Story, "The Chinese and American people are both great people, and our friendship is not only a valuable asset, but also an important foundation for the development of bilateral relations."