In May 2020, a group of students in Pakistan were surprised to receive a letter from Xi Jinping. They should have been studying in Beijing, but were stranded in their home country due to the pandemic. The Chinese president, replying to a letter they had sent earlier, reassured the students that the Chinese government and universities were always concerned about the life and health of foreign students in China. The student who came up with the original idea of writing to President Xi was Muhammad Arif Mughal, and in expressing his surprise and delight at receiving a reply he says, "Now we feel that President Xi Jinping is very close to us."