Sports and cultural exchanges just got a major boost from an unlikely source: pickleball! Chinese President Xi Jinping recently responded to a group of U.S. students and teachers from Maryland who visited China in April for a youth cultural exchange program centered around the trending paddle sport.
In his message, Xi emphasized the importance of "youth-driven people-to-people connections" as key to building cross-cultural understanding. The Maryland delegation had toured Beijing and Shanghai, bonding with Chinese peers through pickleball matches and cultural workshops – proving you don’t need fluent Mandarin to spike a ball and make friends 🎉.
This comes as youth exchanges between the two nations gain momentum, with Gen Z increasingly shaping global diplomacy through shared passions. As Xi noted: "The future belongs to the young." Who knew a mashup of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong could serve up such powerful diplomacy? 🤝
