Xi Jinping's Personal Touch in China's Diplomacy
Beijing (ANTARA) - “Friendship is forged on the basis of something meaningful, namely that a peaceful world must be a world full of friendship.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping once quoted the words of a foreign friend to describe how precious friendship is, as reported by Xinhua.
In Xi’s view, people-to-people friendship is the foundation for stable and sustainable international relations, an inexhaustible driving force for promoting world peace and development, and a basic prerequisite for mutually beneficial cooperation.
During this year’s Spring Festival, Xi replied to messages from his friends in the State of Iowa, United States, and sent Chinese New Year greeting cards containing good wishes, continuing the warm tradition of exchanging New Year greetings between them for three consecutive years.
Recalling his visit to Iowa 41 years ago, Xi said he was warmly welcomed, and the beautiful memories remain firmly embedded in his mind to this day.
In 1985, Xi, who was then a government official in Zhengding, Hebei Province, northern China, led a delegation to Iowa. The visit was Xi’s first trip to the United States.
During that trip, Xi visited Muscatine, a town in rural eastern Iowa, where he stayed at the home of local residents Thomas and Eleanor Dvorchak. The experience of living with the family left a deep impression on Xi.
When recalling the visit decades later, Xi said he still remembered the address where he stayed at the time, 2911 Bonnie Drive.
“That moment was my first face-to-face interaction with Americans,” Xi said. “For me, they represented America,” he continued.
These old friends met again in 2023 when Xi visited San Francisco to attend the APEC leaders’ meeting.
When Xi saw Gary, the son of the Dvorchak family, he said, “I once stayed in your room and remember the shirts and sports equipment there.”
“There was genuine happiness, and you could see the smile on his face. He truly appreciated that moment,” Gary said when recounting the reunion.
Over the past few years, Xi has given a warmer and more personal touch to China’s diplomacy by re-establishing connections with old friends from abroad.
He continues to maintain close relationships with friends from various corners of the world through reunions and correspondence, while creating warm and touching moments.
In 2014, Xi visited Tasmania, Australia, to meet the family of his late old friend, former premier of Tasmania Jim Bacon, to fulfil a promise he had made years earlier.
Bacon’s widow, Honey Bacon, told Xi that her late husband had long awaited his visit.
“Bacon invited me to visit Tasmania and I accepted his invitation. I came here today to fulfil my promise to him,” Xi said.
The two first got to know each other in 1999, when Bacon visited Fujian Province in eastern China and was welcomed by Xi, who was then acting governor of the province.
The two immediately became close. Bacon described Xi as a person with an “extraordinary bearing,” yet also friendly and relaxed like an old friend.
Sommad Pholsena, who once served as Laos’ minister of public works and transport, participated in the construction of the China-Laos Railway.
“The Lao people have long dreamed of having a railway,” he said. “Thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative, the construction of the China-Laos Railway could be realised,” he added.
In 2001, at Xi’s invitation, Bacon led another delegation to visit Fujian. During that visit, after learning that Bacon liked the song “The Waves of Gulangyu”, Xi gave him a recording of the song as a gift. In return, Bacon invited Xi to “come and look around” Tasmania, and Xi gladly accepted the invitation.
However, that meeting turned out to be their last. Bacon died in 2004 after suffering from illness.
When Xi visited Tasmania in 2014, the late Bacon’s family showed him photographs taken during Bacon’s visits to China.
Looking at the photo of the two of them, Xi said with emotion, “I also keep these photos.”
For Xi, such friendship is never limited by time or distance. He always attaches great importance to people-to-people friendship and closer bonds between communities, emphasising that people-to-people friendship is the key to healthy relations between countries, and how important people are for the development of relations between nations.
This year marks the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Laos, as well as the China-Laos Year of Friendship. The China-Laos Railway, which is a key driver of bilateral trade, economic cooperation, and people-to-people exchanges, is also celebrating its fifth year of operation.
Carrying the aspirations of the Lao people to transform their country from a landlocked nation into a land-linked hub, the railway is a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Xi. The railway is also tangible proof of the enduring friendship and close personal ties built by the leaders of China and Laos over the years.
Sommad and Xi are friends from the same alma mater. Sommad is the son of the late Quinim Pholsena, a revolutionary leader who served as Laos’ foreign minister from 1962 to 1963. Several of Pholsena’s children lived and studied at Bayi School in Beijing in the 1960s, when Xi was also studying there.
During visits to Laos in 2010 as China’s vice president and in 2017 as China’s president, Xi made time to meet his friends from the Pholsena family and to meet his former schoolmates. “No matter what, I must make time to see you,” Xi told them.
“President Xi is a true friend who values friendship,” Sommad said.
He also recalled Xi’s words: With this railway, the mountains stretching from Kunming to Vientiane no longer feel so high and the journey no longer feels so far.
Enduring friendship is built on mutual understanding, mutual respect, and sincerity.
“Only when people interact with each other sincerely can friendship last long,” Xi said.
“It is the countless small streams of people-to-people friendship that merge to form a great force for promoting world peace and development, and for building a community with a shared future for mankind.”