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ABC News
ABC News
National
Hamish Macdonald, Nick Baker, Greg Muller and Linda Lopresti for Take Me To Your Leader

How Xi Jinping's past helps explain the China of today

Sarah Lande vividly remembers the start of her unlikely friendship with Xi Jinping.

It was 1985 in Muscatine, Iowa. At the time, Xi held a low-level job in the Chinese Communist Party and was part of a small delegation sent to rural America.

Working at Iowa's 'sister state' organisation, Muscatine resident Lande helped coordinate the two-week trip and spent time with Xi.

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