“Three, two, one – hut!” shouts quarterback Mu Yang, as he throws the ball across the field.
His Beijing Cyclones teammate Henry Mu sprints to the corner for the catch, his studs thudding off the AstroTurf as he jumps for the ball.
“I was so surprised to find American football here,” says Henry as he catches his breath. “It’s very tough, physically and mentally, you must defeat your fear.”
Here, men and women play together in a team sport that you’d associate more with Baltimore than Beijing.
For many Americans, this is more than just a game – it is an expression of their national identity. For this Chinese team, it is something new – there are only a few thousand players in China, but millions of fans.
This is exactly the kind of “people to people” exchanges and cultural connection that Beijing wants with the US, as the two rival superpowers try to calm their tumultuous relationship.
Since President Xi Jinping visited San Francisco last November, China has been keen on emphasising what it has in common with the US rather than differences.
Beijing also appears to have adopted a softer diplomatic tone in recent months as it tries to attract foreign businesses to spur its slowing economy.
On its part, the US has dispatched envoys more frequently to China and signalled cooperation. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Shanghai in his second visit to China in less than a year, on the heels of two recent visits by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
The US calls it “responsibly managing competition” to avert the chances for “miscalculation or conflict”, according to a senior State Department official speaking in the run up to Mr Blinken’s trip
That doesn’t mean the conversations will be easy. There is no doubt the US-China relationship has improved in recent years, but it is a relationship that still crackles with tension and suspicion.
On Wednesday Mr Blinken’s plane carrying officials and reporters, including the BBC, wound its way from Anchorage over the Pacific and Russia, heading to the Chinese coastline north of Taiwan and the South China Sea – a route-map reminder of flashpoints.
Early last year a suspected Chinese spy balloon was floating in the same airspace above the frozen lakes of Alaska, triggering a full-blown international crisis and a nadir in US-China relations.
Just hours before Mr Blinken stepped on the tarmac in Shanghai, the US Senate passed a bill package giving a further $8bn of military aid to Taiwan, which President Biden has said the US would defend if attacked by China. The self-governed island, which counts the US as its biggest ally, is claimed by China.
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