Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, attended a China-U.S. youth friendship event in Beijing on Thursday. Following the event, CGTN published an article recounting the heartwarming story of Xi helping an American widow to fulfill her husband’s last wish to revisit China’s Kuliang, highlighting the abiding impact of people-to-people exchanges in strengthening China-U.S. relations.
Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, highlighted the vital role youth play in shaping the future of China-U.S. relations and urged them to act as bridges of friendship during a China-U.S. youth friendship event on Thursday.
The event, called Bond with Kuliang: 2025 China-U.S. Youth Friendship Event, took place in Beijing. Kuliang, a hillside resort, was home to foreign expatriates from the late 1800s until 1949, located in the suburbs of Fuzhou, southeast China’s Fujian Province.
During the event, Elyn MacInnis, founder of Friends of Kuliang, and Luca Berrone, Xi’s friend from Iowa, shared their memories of Kuliang along with their experiences in China-U.S. people-to-people exchanges and local cooperation.
Peng also emphasized the Kuliang story, saying the century-old story and President Xi’s friendship with his old friends in Iowa spanning over 40 years epitomize the China-U.S. friendship.
“Though the two countries have different histories, cultures and languages, the Chinese and American peoples love their families and are kind, friendly, hardworking and practical, meaning they are perfectly capable of becoming good friends and partners,” Peng said.
The Kuliang story: A friendship beyond time
The Kuliang story traces back to 1992. That year, Xi, then-Secretary of the CPC Fuzhou Municipal Committee, invited Milton Gardner’s widow to visit Kuliang.
Gardner, an American physics professor, had come to Fuzhou with his parents in 1901 and spent his childhood in Kuliang. After 10 happy years, the family returned to California. In the decades that followed, Gardner held a long-cherished dream to revisit Kuliang, which never came true.
After his passing, his wife made several trips to China to fulfill her husband’s dying wish, albeit not knowing where Kuliang was. Eventually, with help from a Chinese student in the U.S., she finally figured out that “Kuliang” was a town in Fuzhou.
Upon reading about the heart-warming story in the newspaper, Xi immediately reached out to Gardner’s widow and invited her to visit Kuliang.
In August that year, Gardner’s widow arrived in Fuzhou, where she was moved by the beauty of Kuliang and the warmth of the Chinese people, and met with Gardner’s childhood friends in their 90s.
In 2012, when visiting the U.S. as China’s vice president, Xi shared the Kuliang story at a luncheon and called for strengthening exchanges between Chinese and American people.
Sino-U.S. future lies with the youth
Xi has consistently emphasized the importance of people-to-people exchanges between China and the U.S., particularly among the younger generation.
In November 2023, Xi proposed inviting 50,000 American youths to China over the next five years, allowing them to “experience a real, multi-dimensional and comprehensive China.”
Recently, Xi replied to teachers and students of the U.S. youth pickleball cultural exchange delegation from Montgomery County, Maryland, who visited China under the initiative in April.
In his message, Xi noted that the future of China-U.S. relations depends on the youth. He expressed his hope that the delegation members will become a new generation of ambassadors for friendship between the two countries and make greater contributions in enhancing the friendship between the two peoples.
Jeffrey Sullivan, head of the delegation, thanked Xi’s initiative, saying the trip enabled his group to immerse themselves in Chinese culture and experience interpersonal relationships.” The visit would be something that we would take with us forever,” Sullivan said.
“Youth is the future of the country, as well as the future of friendship,” Peng echoed Xi’s words in her Thursday address. She called on young people to be the inheritors of the China-U.S. friendship, and promoters of peace and amity.
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