Biography

Ms Julia Chang Bloch
President, US-China Foundation

Julia Chang Bloch is President of the US-China Education Trust, a non-profit organization working in China to promote US-China relations through education. She is affiliated with Fudan University in Shanghai, China, as Distinguished Adviser of the School of International and Public Affairs and Visiting Professor at the Center for American Studies.

Ambassador Bloch, the first Asian American to hold such rank in US history, has had an extensive career in international affairs and government service, beginning as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia, in 1964, and culminating as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal in 1989. From 1981 to 1988, Ambassador Bloch served at the US Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator for Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance and as Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East. She also served in the US Senate and the US Information Agency.

After 25 years in government service, Ambassador Bloch moved to the corporate sector in 1993, becoming Group Executive Vice President at the Bank of America for Public Relations, Government Affairs, and Public Policy. In 1996, she moved into philanthropy, serving as President and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation, a private grant making institution. In 1998, Ambassador Bloch shifted her focus to China, becoming Visiting Professor at the Institute for International Relations and Executive Vice Chairman of the American Studies Center at Peking University, and subsequently affiliating with the University of Maryland as Ambassador-in-Residence at the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs.

A native of China who came to the US at age nine, Ambassador Bloch grew up in San Francisco and earned a bachelor's degree in Communications and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964, and a master's degree in Government and East Asia Regional Studies from Harvard University in 1967. She received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Northeastern University in 1986, and was also a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and an Associate of the US-Japan Relations Program of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard.