Guests visit an exhibition featuring former U.S. general Joseph Stilwell's life at the Stilwell Museum in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality Aug. 8, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Quanchao)
by Gao Fei and Li Yanan
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently replied to a letter from the U.S.-China Youth and Student Exchange Association and friendly personages from all walks of life in the U.S. state of Washington, stressing that "the hope and foundation of the China-U.S. relationship lie in the people, and its future lies in the youths."
In another recent reply to John Easterbrook, grandson of former U.S. General Joseph Stilwell, Xi said he felt the goodwill of the American people towards the Chinese people.
These are concrete practices for Xi to personally advance the development of China-U.S. friendly people-to-people exchanges. It has also charted the course, expanded the channels, and boosted the confidence of China and the United States to remove the current political barriers and forge lasting ties.
Friendship among people holds the key to state-to-state relations. The foundation of the development of state-to-state relations lies in the people. The development of China-U.S. relations requires the joint efforts of the people from both sides. The people are the foundation of a country, and the relations among countries are essentially the relations among the peoples. Taking stock of the history of China-U.S. relations, people-to-people exchanges have always played an important role.
On April 10, 1971, a U.S. table tennis delegation came to Beijing for a friendly visit to China, thus initiating the normalization of China-U.S. relations. In January 1973, the Shenyang Acrobatic Troupe performed in the United States and the entire cast, which was met by then U.S. President Richard Nixon, was acclaimed as "building a bridge of friendship between Chinese and American peoples." In 1978, 52 Chinese students went to study in the United States and eight American students came to study in China, becoming a prelude to the era of mutual learning and friendly exchanges between the two peoples.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, people-to-people exchanges between the two sides have been on the rise, covering such fields as culture, education, science, technology, media, tourism and health. Before the pandemic, there were more than 5 million mutual visits between the two countries every year, and sister provinces/states and sister cities covered more than 90 percent of U.S. states and cities. Non-governmental cooperation catalyzed a number of political, economic and cultural cooperation projects between the two sides at the national level, and the two had once become each other's largest trading partner, contributing to the development and prosperity of the two countries and the world.
Unfortunately, since 2017, the United States has positioned China as its "strategic competitor." While starting a trade war against China, it deliberately obstructed the cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States, and suspended traditional cooperation projects such as the Fulbright Program, seriously damaging bilateral relations.
However, on the side of China, President Xi has been persistently promoting friendly exchanges between China and the United States.
In 2015, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan toured Lincoln High School in Tacoma in the U.S. state of Washington, where they enjoyed a chorus performance by students from the Lincoln High School choir and the Affiliated High School of Fuzhou Institute of Education. In recent years, Xi has sent a congratulatory letter to the Bond with Kuliang: 2023 China-U.S. People-to-People Friendship Forum held in China's Fujian Province and replied to a group of Cascade Elementary School students in the U.S. state of Utah and the students of Niles North High School in the state of Illinois.
While never forgetting "old friends," Xi also greets new friends and encourages young friends. Young people are the future of a country and the world. The relations among young people determine the future relations of China and the United States. Xi hopes the youths from China and the United States can get to know each other, move forward together, become generational ambassadors of bilateral friendship, and continuously inject impetus into the development of bilateral ties.
At present, China and the United States have agreed to expand exchanges in education, humanities, arts, business and other fields, and the number of flights between the two countries has gradually resumed, therefore people-to-people exchanges are expected to become a new path in helping recover bilateral ties.
With China's door to people-to-people exchanges open, President Xi's reply has injected new vitality into restarting China-U.S. exchanges in various fields and resolving the difficulties of their relations. The peoples of the two countries earnestly hope that the U.S. side will show courage and sincerity, and work with China to carry forward the friendship between the two peoples, thus helping the tree of China-U.S. friendship remain evergreen, and steering the relations between the two countries back to a healthy and stable track for the benefit of the two sides and their peoples.
Editor's note: Gao Fei and Li Yanan are scholars from China Foreign Affairs University.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.
Chen Sitan (front) practices Tai Chi Sword with students at Sitan Tai Chi and Martial Arts, a martial art school in Syosset of New York, the United States, Nov. 20, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
Musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra perform during their Chinese New Year Concert in Philadelphia, the United States, Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
People visit a lantern display celebrating the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., the United States, Jan. 29, 2022. (Xinhua/Ting Shen)
A student from Beijing teaches a student from Medgar Evers College Preparatory School of New York to practice Chinese calligraphy during a culture exchange event in New York, the United States, Feb. 2, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
Jan Brown Checco (2nd L), lead artist of the Cincinnati/Liuzhou Paint Out Program, takes pictures of the drawings with her cell phone, at the Smale Riverfront Park in Cincinnati of Ohio, the United States, July 25, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo)
Guests attending a symposium of the Kuliang Friends plant trees in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, June 28, 2023. (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan)
Lin Gaoyuan (1st L, front) of China, Lily Zhang (2nd L, front) of the United States compete with Wang Manyu (2nd R, front) of China and Kanak Jha (1st R, front) of the United States during a joint training session of two pairs formed of both American and Chinese players entering the mixed doubles competition at the 2021 World Table Tennis Championships in Houston, the United States, on Nov. 22, 2021. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
People watch lion dancing during an event celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year at Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., the United States, on Jan. 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)
