BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- "Friendship stands by a meaningful thing -- a world of peace must be a world of friendship."

Chinese President Xi Jinping once quoted a foreign friend to illustrate the preciousness of friendship. In his view, people-to-people friendship is the foundation for stable and sustained international relations, an inexhaustible driving force for promoting world peace and development and a basic prerequisite for win-win cooperation.

This Spring Festival, Xi replied to friends in the U.S. state of Iowa and sent them a Chinese New Year card extending his festive wishes, continuing the warm exchange of New Year greetings between them for a third consecutive year. Recalling his visit to Iowa 41 years ago, Xi said he was warmly received, and those wonderful memories remain fresh in his mind to this day.

In 1985, Xi, then an official of Zhengding County, Hebei Province in northern China, led a delegation to Iowa. It was Xi's first visit to the United States.

During the trip, he visited Muscatine, a city in rural eastern Iowa, where he stayed with a local family of Thomas and Eleanor Dvorchak. The homestay left a lasting impression.

Recalling the trip decades later, Xi said he still remembered where he stayed: 2911 Bonnie Drive. "That was my first face-to-face contact with the Americans," Xi said. "For me, they represent America."

These old friends reunited in 2023 when Xi visited San Francisco for the APEC leaders' meeting. When Xi saw Gary, son of the Dvorchaks, he said, "I stayed in your room and remember the sweatshirts and ball gear there."

"There was genuine happiness, so you could see the smile on his face. He was really enjoying it," Gary said of the reunion.

Over the past years, Xi added a warmer and more personal touch to Chinese diplomacy by reconnecting with old foreign friends. He has maintained close ties with friends from across the globe through reunions and letters, leaving behind countless warm and heartfelt moments.

In 2014, Xi traveled to Australia's Tasmania to visit the family of his old friend, the late Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon, honoring a promise he had made years earlier.

Honey Bacon, Bacon's widow, told Xi that her husband had long looked forward to his visit. "Bacon invited me to visit Tasmania then and I agreed. I came here today to fulfill my commitment to him," Xi said.

The two first came to know each other in 1999, when Bacon visited East China's Fujian Province and was received by Xi, then acting governor of the province. They hit it off immediately. Bacon described him as "extraordinary in demeanor," yet as kind and easy-going as an old friend.

In 2001, at Xi's invitation, Bacon led another delegation to Fujian. During the visit, after learning that Bacon was fond of the song "The Waves of Gulangyu," Xi presented a tape of the song as a gift to him. Bacon, in return, invited Xi to "take a walk and have a look" in Tasmania, and Xi gladly accepted the invitation.

However, this turned out to be the last time the two met. Bacon passed away in 2004 after an illness.

During Xi's visit to Tasmania in 2014, Bacon's family showed him photos taken during Bacon's visits to China. Seeing photos of the two of them, Xi said with emotion, "I also keep these photos."

For Xi, friendships like these are never bound by time or distance. He has long attached great importance to people-to-people friendship and closer bonds between peoples, emphasizing that amity between the people holds the key to sound relations between countries, and the people are the cornerstone of the growth of state-to-state relations.

This year marks the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Laos, as well as the China-Laos Friendship Year. The China-Laos Railway, a key driver of bilateral trade, economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, is also celebrating its fifth year of operation.

Carrying the Lao people's aspiration to transform their country from a landlocked nation into a land-linked hub, the railway stands as a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Xi. It is also a testament to the enduring friendship and close personal ties cultivated by the leaders of China and Laos over the years.

Sommad Pholsena, who served as the minister of public works and transport of Laos, took part in the construction of the China-Laos Railway. "The Lao people had long dreamed of having a railway," he said. "It was the Belt and Road Initiative that made the China-Laos Railway possible."

Sommad was a schoolmate of Xi. He is the son of the late Quinim Pholsena, a revolutionary leader who was foreign minister of Laos from 1962 to 1963. Several of Pholsena's children lived and studied at Bayi School in Beijing in the 1960s, when Xi was also a student there.

During Xi's visits to Laos in 2010 as Chinese vice president and 2017 as president, he set aside time to meet with his friends from the Pholsena family and reunite with his former schoolmates. "No matter what, I had to make time to see you," Xi told them.

"President Xi is a true friend who values friendship," Sommad said.

He also remembers Xi's words: With the (China-Laos) railway, the mountain from Kunming to Vientiane is no longer high and the road no longer long.

Lasting friendship is built on mutual understanding, respect and sincerity. "Only when people engage each other with sincerity can friendship endure," Xi said. "It is the countless small streams of friendship among peoples that come together to form the mighty force advancing world peace and development and building a community with a shared future for humanity."■