BEIJING: When asked what has helped sustain President Xi Jinping’s friendship with him over the past 39 years, Luca Berrone, a board member of Iowa Sister States and a seasoned American businessman, responded with one word: “Respect”.
In 1985, Xi, then secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhengding county committee in Hebei province, led a five-person delegation to Iowa for a two-week visit.
Berrone helped arrange the schedule for the delegation, and he said he was the first person that Xi met during the Iowa trip.
“In his life, I was a nobody in 1985. I just happened to be the person that organized a trip and took him around and took the time to explain things,” Berrone told China Daily in Beijing.
They accompanied each other for those two weeks visiting farms, feed suppliers and grain processing companies, which he said “was a great way to dialogue, exchanging information, and learn from each other”.
“There are a lot of things about China that fascinated me and a lot of things that fascinated them about Iowa and the United States.”
Xi and Berrone had their first reunion in 2012 in Beijing when Xi was vice-president.
“I did not see him for 27 years, but I believe that 27 years later, he respected me, still, to the point that he not only remembered my name, but he mentioned my name.”
When it comes to respect, it takes two to tango. Berrone attributed his respect for Xi to “what he has done for China” in more than the past decade and honoring the commitments that he has made.
Their most recent reunion took place in San Francisco in November during Xi’s visit to the US, when Xi met briefly with him and other representatives dedicated to bilateral friendship.
During the meeting, Xi brought up details of his trip in 1985, how much he enjoyed the visit and meeting with Berrone’s 4-month-old son for the first time in 1985 in downtown Muscatine. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
