Xiplomacy: Bringing a personal touch to Chinese diplomacy

BEIJING -- "Friendship stands by a meaningful thing -- a world of peace must be a world of friendship."

Chinese President Xi Jinping once quoted a foreign friend to illustrate the preciousness of friendship. In his view, people-to-people friendship is the foundation for stable and sustained international relations, an inexhaustible driving force for promoting world peace and development and a basic prerequisite for win-win cooperation.

This Spring Festival, Xi replied to friends in the US state of Iowa and sent them a Chinese New Year card extending his festive wishes, continuing the warm exchange of New Year greetings between them for a third consecutive year. Recalling his visit to Iowa 41 years ago, Xi said he was warmly received, and those wonderful memories remain fresh in his mind to this day.

In 1985, Xi, then an official of Zhengding county, Hebei province in northern China, led a delegation to Iowa. It was Xi's first visit to the United States.

During the trip, he visited Muscatine, a city in rural eastern Iowa, where he stayed with a local family of Thomas and Eleanor Dvorchak. The homestay left a lasting impression.

Recalling the trip decades later, Xi said he still remembered where he stayed: 2911 Bonnie Drive. "That was my first face-to-face contact with the Americans," Xi said. "For me, they represent America."

These old friends reunited in 2023 when Xi visited San Francisco for the APEC leaders' meeting. When Xi saw Gary, son of the Dvorchaks, he said, "I stayed in your room and remember the sweatshirts and ball gear there."

"There was genuine happiness, so you could see the smile on his face. He was really enjoying it," Gary said of the reunion.

Over the past years, Xi added a warmer and more personal touch to Chinese diplomacy by reconnecting with old foreign friends. He has maintained close ties with friends from across the globe through reunions and letters, leaving behind countless warm and heartfelt moments.

In 2014, Xi traveled to Australia's Tasmania to visit the family of his old friend, the late Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon, honoring a promise he had made years earlier.

Honey Bacon, Bacon's widow, told Xi that her husband had long looked forward to his visit. "Bacon invited me to visit Tasmania then and I agreed. I came here today to fulfill my commitment to him," Xi said.