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Xi Jinping receives flowers from an Iowa girl during a visit to the state in 2012
Rick Kimberly still isn’t sure how a future Chinese leader came to visit his farm outside Des Moines.
Prior to their 2012 trip, the advance team was particularly interested in Iowa’s agricultural areas, and Kimberly’s family farm, which grows corn and soybeans, was a perfect fit.
“They also told me that they didn’t want anyone riding on the farm equipment. They were probably worried that they might slip and fall,” he recalls.
But officials underestimated the practical zeal of then-Vice President Xi Jinping, the most important member of the delegation.
“I saw President Xi looking at a John Deere tractor,” Kimberly said. “Then I asked President Xi if he wanted to ride.
“Of course he did. We were talking through an interpreter, but he didn’t wait for the translation, he immediately understood what I was saying and went straight to the tractor.”
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Xi Jinping (center) gets out of the cab of a tractor with Rick Kimberly (right) during a tour of his family’s farm in 2012.
Health and safety concerns turned out to be unfounded, and Mr. Xi was glad that no one was injured while riding the farm equipment.
It turns out to be the latest chapter in the Chinese president’s strange ties to the largely rural Midwestern state.
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China’s future leader seems to have enjoyed the actual visit
Mr. Xi first visited Iowa in 1985 as part of an agricultural delegation from China’s Hebei province.
He stayed in Muscatine, a city of about 24,000 people surrounded by farmland and the Mississippi River.
The Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, said the delegation “visited local elderly residents, attended birthday parties, conducted six interviews with local media, and attended five welcome banquets held by the U.S. side.” It was reported.
“I thought he was a very nice, focused and polite person,” Eleanor Dvorchak, who hosted Xi at her home during his stay, later told the BBC. “I was happy to have him home.”
The Dvoraks put Mr. Xi to sleep in their son’s bedroom, but Mr. Xi was away at the time attending the University of Iowa. Even if China’s president had an opinion about the Star Trek wallpaper in his room, he managed to keep it to himself.
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The Chinese leader reunited with Muscatine residents, including Sarah Rand (left), during a 2012 visit. In 1985, Ms. Rand helped coordinate a visit to Muscatine by a delegation led by President Xi Jinping.
Some of the Iowans the future president met during his first visit are now known in Chinese media as “old friends.” And while the often frosty U.S.-China relationship will be clarified in detail at this week’s APEC summit and meeting between Mr. Xi and President Joe Biden, Mr. Xi received a warm welcome from several longtime “old friends.” I’ll take it. I was invited to dinner.
He returned to Muscatine as part of a trip to the state in 2012, and the following year a Chinese businessman purchased the Dvoraks’ old home, which became a museum for a time.
This week’s itinerary does not include Iowa, but Xi is also expected to meet with Terry Branstad, the state’s former governor who served as ambassador to China under Donald Trump.
Branstad did not respond to requests for comment, but after leaving the ambassador’s post, he told an Iowa newspaper that he had a warm personal relationship with Xi but had deep concerns about some of the Chinese government’s policies. Told.
“The actions they have taken against the people of Hong Kong… [and] I think the mistreatment of Uyghurs is unconscionable,” he told the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.
He also criticized the country’s secrecy about the origins of the first coronavirus outbreak, saying: “I think the system in this country is really problematic.”
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McDonald’s restaurant in Muscatine welcomed Mr. Xi during his 2012 trip
Kimberly, now 72 and the fifth generation of an Iowa farming family dating back to the 1860s, said that in 2012, the Chinese delegation was interested in more than just a photo shoot. They said they asked a lot of questions about the details. About modern agriculture.
And for him personally, this visit was a life-changing event. He was subsequently invited to China and visited the country more than 20 times as part of efforts to promote agricultural development.
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Mr. Xi looks at a vase of soybeans and corn at his home in Kimberly in 2012, as Iowa Governor Branstad (left), who later became ambassador to China, and Kimberly (right) look on. year 2012.
“We promote sustainable agriculture and better growing methods,” he says. “We have 4,000 acres of land that he farms with four people. It’s amazing to the Chinese people that so few people can farm so much land.”
And it has also made his farm something of a tourist attraction. Since then, Kimberly said, “hundreds if not thousands” of Chinese have traveled to the land where their leader once rode on a tractor.