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Branstad excited about US visit by Chinese president, who shares a special bond with people of Hawkeye State

Xi Jinping chats with his US friends during his 2012 trip to Iowa as China's vice-president. He is currently on his first state visit to the US as president.  [CHINA DAILY]

For Terry Branstad, the Republican Governor of Iowa, Xi Jinping's state visit to the United States is a renewal of the friendship between the Chinese president and the people of Iowa.

Branstad first met the president in 1985 when Xi, then a county official in northern Hebei province, led a five-member agricultural delegation to Hebei's sister state of Iowa.

The governor was serving his first term, and he received the group in his office in the Iowa State Capitol. It was also Branstad who signed the Iowa-Hebei sister agreement in 1983.

The delegation visited farms and factories and stayed with local host families in the small town of Muscatine alongside the Mississippi River. They went on tours on the river and attended a birthday party and a picnic.

When Xi made a return trip to Iowa in 2012 as China's vice-president at Branstad's invitation, he fondly recalled the memories he had of Iowa and referred to the people there as old friends.

"We're very honored and very proud to have the president of China call us old friends," said Branstad, who this year became the longest-serving governor in US history. "We're excited about his trip to America again."

China is a key trade partner for Iowa, a major agricultural producer of soybeans, corn and pork, and the governor sees the purchase of Smithfield Foods, the largest US pork producer, by a Chinese company as a sign that more Iowa pork will be exported to China.

Branstad had hoped that the president would return to Iowa this time, too, and he extended an invitation.

"We would love to have him in Iowa, but this year it's going to be Seattle," he said.

"I understand that," he said. "This is a big country, and there are 50 states, so I don't think we can get him to come to Iowa every time he comes to America."

But Branstad sent the invitation anyway. "I know he had very fine feelings of Iowa."

When Xi met his old friends in Iowa in February 2012, he told them that because they were the first Americans he met on his first trip to the US, "to me, you are America."

"He said that when he thinks of America he thinks of Iowa, of the nice people he met here in 1985, the friendliness, the hospitality, the genuineness of Iowa people," Branstad recalled. "So I think he feels very much at home in Iowa."

The governor described Xi as being unlike other Chinese officials, who he said are usually formal and scripted. Instead, he said, Xi spoke off-script during the reunion in 2012. "We're very proud to have that personal relationship with him," he added.

Branstad said he was looking forward to meeting with Xi in Seattle, where the Chinese president was scheduled to meet with a group of US governors. He said he wanted to tell the Chinese leader that he knows China is going through some economic challenges, but that "we're proud to be friends, and we want to continue".