Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan recently expressed the hope that a U.S. student delegation that recently visited China at their invitation would become ambassadors for China-U.S. friendship.
The presidential couple made the remarks in a letter to the students of the Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington, which they met during their state visit to the United States in September last year.
"We hope you will share your experience and impression of China with people around you, so that more Americans will get to know China better," they wrote in the letter.
"We hope you will become ambassadors of China-U.S. friendship and do more to promote the friendship between our peoples," they added.
During their recent visit in China, the students toured the Chinese cities of Beijing, Chengdu and Fuzhou, interacting with their peers and making friends with them.
In the letter, Xi cited the "Guling story" to demonstrate that the friendship between the Chinese and American peoples enjoys a long history, and needs to be carried forward by the younger generation.
In 1992, when Xi was working in Fuzhou City in southeast China, he helped an American woman fulfill her late husband's wish to visit Guling in the suburbs of Fuzhou.
Elizabeth Gardner's husband Milton Gardner was born and spent his childhood in Guling, before he left for the United States in 1911. Milton Gardner had longed to revisit Guling since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979, but never made the trip due to his failing health.
After he died, his widow made several trips to China in an attempt to find the small town, but in vain.
On reading the story from a newspaper, Xi decided to lend a hand. With Xi's help, Elizabeth Gardner finally visited the town in August 1992.
The delegation of 118 U.S. students and teachers visited China on Oct. 11-18, and sent gifts to Xi and Peng through the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
