Branstad tells old stories of China

US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad (center) meets with members of the Iowa delegation at a Sister States reception in Beijing on Wednesday. Kelsey Kremer / Des Moines Register and Pulitzer Center

Terry Branstad is in a unique position to observe the changes in China over the years.

It's not just because he's the US ambassador to China and has been friends with President Xi Jinping since 1985. It's also that Branstad started traveling to China in 1984.

He drew on those experiences on Wednesday when he addressed a Sister Cities delegation from Iowa, his home state, where he served as governor first from 1983 to 1999, and again from 2011 to May 2017.

"My first year as governor was 1983. Zhang Shuguang was the governor of Hebei. He came to Des Moines, we signed the sister-state (agreement)," Branstad told his guests, in a video posted on The Des Moine Register website.

"He looked like an Iowa farmer out of the 1950s with a flat-top haircut," Branstad, 70, said to laughs, "but he was a very gregarious individual, and he invited me to bring a delegation to Hebei in 1984.

"We brought a big delegation, 50 Iowans. We opened up a trade office in Hong Kong and then we came to Beijing. It was like going back in time. No tall buildings, everybody's riding bicycles.

"The only thing you saw on the street was bicycles and military vehicles. Now, you've got every imaginable luxury car made in the world on the streets of Beijing. The bicycles are back, but they're the new rental bicycles all these companies that are competing," he said to more chuckles.

"So we've seen dramatic change. We rode an old steam locomotive, a coal-fired steam locomotive from here to Shijiazhuang," Branstad said. "They met us at a train depot with a band, presented Chris (Branstad's wife) with a big boquet of flowers, and we just felt very warmly welcomed."

When Branstad first met Xi in 1985, the Chinese president was a county official in northern Hebei province who was leading a five-member agricultural delegation to Iowa. The governor received the group in his office in the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines.

The delegation visited farms and factories and stayed with local host families in the small town of Muscatine along 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 recalled the fond memories he had from the Midwestern state and referred to the people there as old friends.

Chen Weihua contributed to this story.

williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com