The Value of US-China Education Exchanges
Thursday, September 18, 2025
8:30 - 10:00 am (ET)
Online only via Zoom
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About the event:
As political and economic trust between the United States and China deteriorates year by year, some non-profits and scholars in both countries continue to swim against the tide, organizing exchange programs designed to build mutual understanding and trust. One of these is the U.S.-China Education Trust (USCET), a non-profit founded by former US Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch that supports American studies and other education programs at Chinese universities. Last May, when the US State Department announced that it would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” USCET issued a public statement decrying what it called a threat to the “broader foundation of US-Chinese relations.” Ambassador Bloch and USCET Executive Director Rosie Levine will explain why they continue to believe in the value of bilateral education exchanges, drawing on USCET’s more than two decades of experience.
Relevant reading: Three Decades of Chinese Students in America, 1991-2021, a research report written jointly with the China Data Lab of the UC San Diego 21st Century China Center.
About the speakers:
Julia Chang Bloch is founder and executive chair of the U.S.-China Education Trust and founder of the F.Y. Chang Foundation. She spent 25 years in government service, beginning as a Peace Corps volunteer and culminating as US ambassador to Nepal (1989-1993). She was the first Asian American to hold the rank of ambassador. She also served in the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Information Agency, as chief minority counsel to a Senate select committee, and as a Senate professional staff member. After retiring from government, she held leadership positions at the Bank of America and United States-Japan Foundation. Ambassador Bloch was elected as a fellow to the National Academy of Public Administration and is on the Expert/Eminent Persons Register of the ASEAN Regional Forum. She serves on a number of corporate and non-profit boards. Her publications include Women and Diplomacy, Bonds Across Borders (2007); Nepal: End of Shangri-la, Liberal Democracy Nepal Bulletin (2005); and America’s Love-Hate Relationship with China, American Forum Journal of the Fudan University Center of American Studies (2003).
Rosie Levine is executive director of the U.S.-China Education Trust. She formerly was a senior program analyst for the United States Institute of Peace’s China program and worked at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, where she designed and implemented programs for a network of leading China scholars to improve American understanding of China. She also oversaw a year-long project to survey and report on the state of American research on China. She has been a project fellow in The Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations and earlier in her career worked at a grassroots nonprofit in Beijing dedicated to preserving the city’s historic alleys, known as hutongs. She earned a master’s degree in Chinese studies from the Yenching Academy of Peking University and bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Michigan. She spent part of her childhood in Beijing.