MORE PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE CONNECTION

    As Chinese language and cultural education expands in the United States, the window for people-to-people connection between the two countries opens wider.

    When Liu Yafei, an experienced teacher, migrated to Portland, Oregon, from China in the early 1990s, Chinese language education was very limited in that city.

    Several years later, she confounded the Chinese department at Portland International School, arousing a lot of interest among local children in learning Chinese.

    Liu and her colleagues taught U.S. kids with Chinese textbooks on a full-time basis, a very effective method known as the "Chinese language immersion."

    Many of her students passed the Hanban-sponsored Chinese Proficiency Test, and the youngest among them was only 10 years old.

    Through scholarships provided by Chinese schools, now every summer Liu will take a group of her students to China to study with Chinese students.

    "My students made friends with Chinese kids, know a lot about China and thus have a deeper understanding of China," she told Xinhua.

    "Through exchanges and communications like this, people-to-people connection is established and will help to bridge the gap between the two nations," Liu added.

    U.S. experts estimate that there are now more than 10,000 U.S. students studying in China at any given time, and that number is growing rapidly.

    Albert Keidel, a China expert at the Atlantic Council, said Americans needed to increase their understanding of Chinese culture and history, because their "personal understanding of China and the Chinese could promote opportunities for growth for both countries in ways that can better solve a lot of problems that we face," he said.

    Keidel said U.S. leaders were increasingly aware of that and he expected the expansion of China-U.S. educational exchanges would be on Obama's agenda when the U.S. president visited China.