作者： admin

Against a backdrop of often tense and headline-dominating high-level geopolitical discussions between China and the United States, a quiet, people-centered initiative is anchoring the bilateral relationship in mutual understanding and friendship, one handwritten wish at a time.

This past March, between the 14th and 22nd, 100 student delegates from the U.S. state of Iowa embarked on a multi-city tour of China, stopping in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shijiazhuang, the capital of China’s Hebei province. At Shijiazhuang Foreign Language School, alongside their Chinese peers, the visiting students tied handwritten red wish cards to the budding branches of a ginkgo tree, filling each small note with hopes for peace, shared prosperity, and lasting friendship between the two nations. This collective act was the core of the China-U.S. Friendship Tree — Ginkgo Project, an initiative designed to carry forward the decades-old sister-state relationship between Hebei and Iowa.

The exchange is part of the transformative “50,000 in Five Years” youth exchange program, first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his 2023 visit to San Francisco, with the goal of expanding and deepening people-to-people connections between the youth of both countries.

The Ginkgo Project, founded by Luca Berrone, a board member of Iowa Sister States, draws on long-standing cultural symbolism of the ginkgo tree: a species renowned for its resilience, longevity, and ability to form enduring, deep roots over centuries. The initiative invites participants from both China and the United States to express their hopes for bilateral relations through writing or art, tying those aspirations to the tree as a permanent, visible testament to shared goodwill.

While the project itself centers on the simple, intimate act of exchanging wish cards, its origins stretch back more than 40 years, to 1983, when Hebei and Iowa formally established their sister-state relationship. What began as a formal intergovernmental agreement has grown over decades into a critical lifeline for sub-national diplomacy, serving as a stable counterweight to shifts in top-level geopolitical dialogue. As Berrone emphasizes, the most enduring bilateral bonds are almost always built from the bottom up, one personal connection at a time.

During their 9-day tour, the Iowa students experienced the full breadth of Chinese life, from exploring iconic historical landmarks including Beijing’s Palace Museum to engaging with hands-on traditional cultural activities such as Chinese knot weaving and martial arts training. They competed in friendly sports matches with local Chinese youth, toured university and high school campuses, and for many delegates, the trip included the deeply personal experience of staying with local Chinese families, bringing them face to face with the warmth and hospitality of ordinary Chinese people.

For Berrone, the project and the 2026 student exchange hold deeply personal meaning. His own connection to China dates back to 1985, when as a young county official in Iowa, he helped coordinate then-visit of a Chinese delegation led by Xi Jinping, and traveled alongside the group across the state. He still recalls Xi as a sharp, curious, and inherently warm person, a memory that has shaped his decades-long commitment to building cross-Pacific friendship.

That long history of connection led Berrone and other Iowa friends of China to send New Year greetings to President Xi earlier this year, affirming their commitment to growing people-to-people ties. On February 16, President Xi responded with a personal Chinese New Year card, recalling the warm welcome he received in Iowa 41 years earlier. In his reply, Xi emphasized that the future of China-U.S. relations rests with the people, its foundation lies in grassroots connections, its growth depends on youth engagement, and its vitality comes from sub-national exchanges.

For Berrone, the reply was a moving confirmation of what the Ginkgo Project has worked to prove: that ordinary people’s connections remain the most important ballast for the bilateral relationship, even during periods of uncertainty. Sarah Lande, another long-time Iowa friend of China who has nurtured cross-Pacific ties for decades, echoed that sentiment in a pre-recorded video message delivered at an icebreaking event for Chinese and American students. Recalling her own friendship with Xi dating back to his 1985 visit, Lande described that connection as “a living testament to how genuine human connections can bridge differences and build lasting bonds of understanding and respect.”

“Real diplomacy is rooted in people-to-people ties, in shared laughter, shared experiences and mutual respect,” Lande told the assembled students, noting that the young participants themselves are not just beneficiaries of this long history, but active ambassadors of friendship, peace, and mutual understanding between the two countries.

For many of the visiting Iowa students, the trip reshaped their understanding of China far beyond what they had seen in media or learned in classrooms. What had once felt like a distant, unfamiliar nation quickly became a place of familiar human connection, where shared hopes and kindness transcended political differences — one handwritten wish on a ginkgo tree branch at a time.

In a working inspection tour of eastern China’s Zhejiang Province and southeastern China’s Jiangxi Province held between Monday and Thursday, Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong, who also serves as a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has laid out clear priorities for advancing the country’s water management infrastructure and ecological conservation efforts, calling for accelerated construction of a modern national water network and strengthened, comprehensive protection of the nation’s river systems. The ultimate goal of these efforts, Liu emphasized, is to steadily boost China’s capacity to safeguard long-term water security.

During the site visits, Liu conducted in-depth, on-the-ground reviews of key water conservancy projects across both provinces, covering critical infrastructure ranging from reservoirs, river channels, and embankments to large-scale irrigation districts and rural drinking water supply systems. He also received detailed briefings on ongoing conservation and management work for two major water bodies in the region: the Xin’an River and Poyang Lake.

Liu stressed that advancing the core framework of the national water network must remain a top near-term priority. He called for coordinated planning and execution of water conservancy projects at all administrative levels, paired with targeted improvements to how the country allocates its freshwater resources across different regions and use cases.

Beyond infrastructure development, Liu called for elevated standards for the protection and governance of all rivers and lakes across the country. He highlighted the urgent need to scale up adoption of water-saving irrigation technologies to maximize water use efficiency in the agricultural sector, while also reinforcing the safety and reliability of drinking water supplies for rural communities.

During a stop to review flood prevention infrastructure and national hydrological forecasting systems, Liu pushed for full and thorough implementation of pre-disaster preparedness measures. This includes completing comprehensive screening and rectification of all known hidden safety hazards, he said, to effectively raise the country’s ability to prevent and mitigate damage from floods and waterlogging, which pose recurring seasonal risks to many Chinese regions.

The inspection tour also included stops to review early rice seedling cultivation and rapeseed farming operations, tying agricultural water management priorities to broader national food security goals.

HONG KONG – On April 3, 2026, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) announced it had submitted a formal application to the High Court’s Court of First Instance seeking the forfeiture of assets linked to Jimmy Lai that are connected to his national security offenses. The legal move is framed as a critical step to disrupt and deter activities that threaten the stability and sovereignty of China’s national security.

This application follows due legal process, brought in full compliance with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong National Security Law) and its associated Implementation Rules for Article 43.

The legal action comes after Lai was previously found guilty by the Court of First Instance on three counts of national security-endangering offenses. Court documents confirmed Lai acted as the mastermind and primary driving force behind a sustained campaign of illegal activity. He deliberately leveraged the now-shuttered *Apple Daily* media outlet and his own personal influence to systematically undermine the legitimacy and authority of the Central People’s Government of China and the HKSAR Government, as well as their respective institutions. His actions also eroded public trust between the Hong Kong public and the two levels of government, activity that the court ruled far exceeded the bounds of legally protected expression. Additionally, Lai was found to have repeatedly colluded with foreign forces, openly calling for external sanctions against China and the HKSAR and carrying out coordinated hostile actions against both governments. For these offenses, the court ultimately sentenced Lai to 20 years in prison.

Under Article 32 of the Hong Kong National Security Law, any proceeds derived from national security offenses – including financial support, illicit gains, rewards, and any funds or tools used or intended for use in committing these offenses – are subject to seizure and confiscation. Per the legislation, the Court of First Instance may only issue a forfeiture order after an application is submitted by the Secretary for Justice, and only after the court confirms the targeted property meets all legally defined criteria for forfeiture, in line with strict requirements laid out in Schedule 3 of the Implementation Rules.

In a statement accompanying the application, an HKSAR Government spokesperson emphasized that Hong Kong is a society founded on the rule of law, and has long upheld the core principle that laws must be respected and violations must result in accountability. The spokesperson noted that seeking court-approved forfeiture orders is a widely recognized global legal mechanism to combat serious crime and protect broad public interest, including in jurisdictions around the world.

By targeting assets tied to national security offenses, the forfeiture order is designed to prevent Lai, his co-conspirators and associates from continuing to use these resources to plan and carry out activities that endanger national security. The move explicitly aims to cut off the financial supply chains that support national security offenses and reduce the operational capacity of groups and individuals seeking to harm China’s national interests, the spokesperson added.