MUSCATINE, Iowa — A new grant and program will give students in Muscatine the chance to study abroad in China.
The Muscatine China Initiatives Committee, the Sarah D. Lande Friendship Education Fund and Wanxiang signed an agreement to form the "Sarah and Roger Lande Scholars" Program. Students in the Muscatine School District and Muscatine Community College will be able to apply for the program.
Pin Ni, a Chicago businessman with Wanxiang, donated $500,000 to the program so that students can attend a four-week immersion program during the summers of 2023 and 2024. Students will study on the campus of Hangzhou Wanxiang Polytechnic in Hangzhou, Zheijiang Province, learning about the Chinese language, environmental protection and clean energy science.
Daniel Stein, Chairman of the Muscatine-China Initiatives Committee, said it will be an all-expense-paid program.
The grant was announced on Wednesday, April 20, during Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang's visit to Muscatine.
"Muscatine is a holy place of friendship between China and the United States," Gang said.
Gang visited with old friends of President Xi Jinping. Jinping first visited Muscatine in 1985 as part of an agriculture delegation to learn about hog farming. He returned when he was vice president in 2012 to meet with some of the people he met during that trip.
"As an ambassador, one of my most important jobs is to take care of this special friendship," Gang said. "And let it, the torch of friendship, passed from generation to generation. So now the torch is in our hands, and we have a responsibility to pass it on."
He added that those friendships are particularly important right now. As tensions continue to rise between the two countries, "friendship is the most effective vaccine to the political virus," Gang said.
Sarah Lande is an honorary friendship ambassador to China. Jinping's 2012 visit to Muscatine took place at her home, now called the "friendship home." She's excited about the opportunity to continue this friendship between Muscatine and China with the younger generations.
"We're going to work to get more opportunities for young people to go back and forth," she said. "And more opportunities for people from China and the U.S. to get along and to get together with one another, because when people get together, then it seems like the barriers come down."
"It all starts with the younger people," Stein said. "The more exchange programs we can have, the more people visiting the other country and getting an understanding of the culture, the better it's going to be for U.S.-China relations in the long run."
Muscatine students have traveled to China for four-week programs in the past, Stein added, but the trips were put on pause because of the pandemic. He said around 40-60 students visited each summer in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
"We hope that we can write more, new chapters to the book of friendship," Gang said.