Consul General Wang Baodong's Speech 
at the Celebration of the Chinese New Year 
of the Snake with Old Friends in Muscatine

(January 29, 2025)

Esteemed Ms. Sarah Lande and Mr. Luca Berrone,
Honorable Mayor Bark，
Honorable Principal Castle and Principal Liu Xiaohui,
President of Wanxiang America Mr. Ni Pin,
Ladies and gentlemen, teachers, students and parents,
Dear friends,

Good afternoon!

This is my second visit to Muscatine since I took up the post of the Chinese Consul General in Chicago nearly five months ago, and it is such a great pleasure and unique experience to see the old friends again in Muscatine, and gather together to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Snake. 

What’s particularly special and important is that Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a Chinese New Year greeting card two days ago in return to 58 friends in Muscatine and the State of Iowa, recalling the warm reception he received from the Iowa friends during his visit to the state 40 years ago and expressed his best wishes for Spring Festival. The Iowa friends include Luca Berrone, Gary Dvorchak, Sarah Lande, Ambassador Terry Branstad and Ambassador Kenneth Quinn. Representatives of teachers, students and parents from Iowa who visited China recently as part of President Xi’s Initiative to invite 50000 young U.S. people to China over the course of five years for exchange and study programs also signed the greeting card. This exchange of greeting cards and sincere blessings is so touching and encouraging that it undoubtedly adds special warmth and unique meaning to our celebration today. We need a big round of applause and cheers here!

What’s also special is that we have teachers and students from five Chinese high schools who have left behind their parents in China to join us for this year’s celebration. Let’s give them a big round of applause! We also have friends from the media both Chinese and American to report on our event. Let’s give them a big round of applause of appreciation!

As the most ancient and grand traditional festival of the Chinese nation, the Spring Festival is also a new starting point each year for deepening friendships and envisioning the future. In 2023, the Spring Festival was listed as an official holiday of the United Nation. In last December, the Spring Festival was successfully inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, turning the Chinese Festival into a World Festival celebrated by people across the globe.

On this auspicious and joyous occasion of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, on behalf of Chinese Ambassador in the United States Mr. Xie Feng and the Chinese Consulate General in Chicago, I would like to extend heartfelt New Year wishes to friends from all walks of life in Muscatine and other cities in the State of Iowa, who have long cared about China's development and supported China-U.S. friendship.

Dear friends,

In the past year, we witnessed China's vibrant development and confident opening-up. The Chinese economy has delivered an impressive and substantial performance, with its GDP surpassing the 18 trillion USD mark for the first time. The 5% growth rate ranks among the best among major economies, adding fresh driving force into the global economic development. The implementation of over 300 reform measures proposed by the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in last July are carried out in an accelerating way. A package of macro policies introduced in the past months have shown positive effects, and the pace of Chinese modernization drive is steady and strong. China's opening up has made new progress, the 240-hour visa-free transit policy has created another boom in "China Travel." The negative list for foreign investment access is becoming shorter while the business environment keeps improving, and more types of foreign capital are deepening their involvement in the Chinese market. 

China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation has been gathering positive momentum, with the annual bilateral trade volume in 2024 reaching nearly 690 billion USD and cumulative two-way investment exceeding 260 billion USD. Over 70,000 U.S. companies are investing and operating in China, generating an annual profit of 50 billion USD, and U.S. exports to China support 930,000 jobs in the U.S. We believe that getting along with China’s further reform, opening-up, and modernization drive, the potential for China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation will be even greater, and the prospects will also be brighter.

In the past year, we witnessed China-U.S. relations overcoming difficulties and obstacles, maintaining a steady momentum. As the most important bilateral relationship in the world, how China and the U.S. interact is crucial to the well-being of both nations and attracts the attention of the international community. President Xi Jinping emphasized during a phone call with President Trump two weeks ago that China and the U.S. share extensive common interests and broad space for cooperation, and the two countries can become partners and friends, contribute to each other's success, and enjoy common prosperity, which will benefit both countries and the whole world. This is also the most important message conveyed in President Xi’s greeting card in reply to his old friends in Iowa. And President Trump made very positive response to President Xi in the phone talks, stating that the U.S. and China are the most important countries in the world today, and they should maintain long-standing friendship and work together to safeguard global peace.

As it is, under the leadership of our top leaders, China and the U.S. have engaged in a series of effective dialogues and collaborations. For example, China and the U.S. agreed to extend the Agreement between the U.S. and China on Cooperation in Science and Technology for additional five years, effective from August 2024. Our two countries have also set up an intergovernmental dialogue on AI (Artificial Intelligence) last year and held the first meeting. In recent days, China’s AI model DeepSeek has become a hot topic on the international media comparing it with the U.S. OpenAI. It is hoped that DeepSeek and OpenAI will become uniting and not dividing AI tools for our two peoples.

What’s also worth emphasizing is that people-to-people friendship has been the driving force of China-U.S. relations, constantly flowing like a source of vitality. Direct flights between our two countries have increased, cultural and sports interactions have flourished, and business and local governmental exchanges have become closer. Among them, 16,000 American youth, including the Iowa student delegation supported by Ambassador Branstad and many Muscatine students, have visited China last year under President Xi’s initiative of ‘50000 in 5 years’. Just as President Xi expressed in his reply greeting card, we hope that the two peoples, including people of all walks of life in Iowa and Muscatine will pay more visits to each other and have more interactions, jointly write new stories of friendship between the two peoples, and make new contributions to the development of China-U.S. relations.

As I mentioned earlier, President of Wanxiang America, Mr. Ni Ping, is also here today to announce continued support for Muscatine students' participation in China-U.S. youth exchange programs. Let’s give him a big round of applause! We believe that as more and more good intentions gather, they will form a powerful force for the sound development of China-U.S. relations, helping the friendship tree between the people of China and the U.S. grow lush and evergreen.

Dear friends,

Looking ahead to the Year of the Snake, China-U.S. relations are once again standing at a new historical starting point. The past is gone, and the future is full of promise. No matter how the international environment may change, the historical logic of China-U.S. peaceful coexistence will remain unchanged, the fundamental desire of our peoples for interaction and cooperation will remain unchanged, and the universal expectation of the world for the stable development of China-U.S. relations will remain unchanged.

Facing the future, we must continue to uphold the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. We will work together to create a shared China-U.S. circle of unity, build a "bridge of hearts" for our two peoples, and ensure that the friendship between China and the U.S., particularly that between China and the State of Iowa and Muscatine, is passed down from generation to generation, no matter through online or offline, via TikTok or Rednote, so as to yield more and more fruits of win-win cooperation.

As the Year of the Dragon leaves us and the Year of the Snake comes in, a brand-new spring is approaching us. In Chinese Culture, the snake is a symbol of wisdom, resilience, and enterprise. In the face of new opportunities and challenges ahead, we need to pool our wisdom and break new ground with great resilience and enterprise. I sincerely wish all of you present and your families a happy and prosperous New Year! I also sincerely hope that in the new year of the Snake, China-U.S. relations will continue to grow steadily and benefit our two peoples and the world at large! Let’s join hands to forge ahead create an even better shared future of mankind!