Zouping hosted important foreign academic exchanges in the 1980s and '90s, fostering connections with the world.

For many years, Shi Changxiang, a chain-smoking county official from Shandong province in East China, was unaware that his tobacco addiction was regarded as a potential threat to the future of a hard-won research project between China and the United States.

The concerns were raised by Michel Oksenberg, an academic and senior member of the US National Security Council, who was deeply involved in the normalization of US-China relations during the Carter administration.

Feng Yuezhao, head of Fengjiacun village, stands in front of the 16-room buildings that were built in Zouping county, Shandong province, in 1987 to accommodate US academics. Ju Chuanjiang / China Daily

Former US president Jimmy Carter (left) and US academic Michel Oksenberg (center) visit Zouping in 1997. Photos provided to China Daily

Guy Alitto, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, talks with villagers in Zouping in the late 1980s.