Iowa high schoolers visited China and President Xi Jinping paid for all of it

Groups of high schoolers from Iowa have exchanged letters with Chinese President Xi Jinping and took trips to the country on China’s dime.

Emails show back-and-forth messages between Muscatine Community School District and the Chinese government, and that a January trip for 24 students was completely paid for by the communist government, the DailyMail reported.

A group of 32 students traveled to the country last month, and another trip is tentatively scheduled for October. However, it’s unclear if those were all-expense paid trips, according to the emails.

“In the past few days, the Chinese consulate has been in contact with me regarding the upcoming China trip. We have been invited by the Ministry of Education of China to visit at the end of January,” one email sent mid-January by the school’s Chinese teacher said.

“If you would like to join, please let me know ASAP. You’re invited and China will cover all of the costs,” the email said. “We will need to get everyone’s visa this Friday or next Monday. The Chinese consulate will help us to get everything ASAP.”

The idea was sparked after Muscatine resident Sarah Lande reached out to the president after he offered to welcome American students to China at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, Voice of America news reported.

She had met Mr. Xi previously in 1985 when she hosted a group from China that was visiting Muscatine to research agriculture, and one time after that when he came back to the United States to visit her.

These trips come as the U.S. government continues to have a strained relationship with China.

Concerns of Chinese nationals coming across the border as spies have been mounting amid the chaos at the U.S. southern border. Groups of military-age Chinese men were caught crossing by boat.

In September, new reports revealed that Chinese nationals posing as tourists accessed U.S. military bases and other sites roughly 100 times in recent years.

There have been worries about China indoctrinating young Americans through the Confucius Classrooms program for teaching Chinese language and culture.

Most recently, President Biden signed a law that would ban the Chinese-owned app TikTok in the U.S. if it were not sold to an American company. Lawmakers said the app, which allowed China to access the personal data of millions of Americans, was a national security risk.