Muscatine, a small town along the Mississippi River in Iowa, made headlines in February 2012 when Xi Jinping, then China's vice-president, arrived to see "old friends" he had first met 27 years earlier.

Xi joined dozens of local people for tea at the home of Sarah Lande and spoke of fond memories of his 1985 trip - his first to the United States - as head of an agricultural delegation from Zhengding county in Hebei province.

"You were the first group of Americans I came into contact with," he told them. "To me, you are America."