Julia Chang Bloch (; born 1942) is a
Chinese American businessperson and diplomat, who was the first
U.S. ambassador of
Asian descent. She is the founder and president of the
US-China Education Trust.
Life and political career
Bloch was born in
Chefoo
Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the ...
(now
Yantai
Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the ...
),
Shandong Province,
China, and moved to the US when she was nine. Her father was the first Chinese graduate of
Harvard Law School, where he was classmates with Massachusetts senator
Leverett Saltonstall
Leverett A. Saltonstall (September 1, 1892June 17, 1979) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. He served three two-year terms as the 55th Governor of Massachusetts, and for more than twenty years as a United States senator ...
. Saltonstall helped pass a law to allow her entire family to emigrate from Hong Kong to the US. She grew up in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, where she attended
Lowell High School, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Communications and Public Policy from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, in 1964, and a master's degree in Government and East Asia Regional Studies from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1967. From 1971 she was a staffer for the
Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs The United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs was a select committee of the United States Senate between 1968 and 1977. It was sometimes referred to as the McGovern committee, after its only chairman, Senator George McGov ...
, and thereafter worked in a number of other roles, including administering a food-aid program. She was appointed ambassador to Nepal by President
George H. W. Bush in 1989, a post she held until 1993. In 1993, Bloch left the public sector to become a group executive vice president at
Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
, where she created the corporate relations department, heading the bank's public relations, government affairs and public policy operations. In 2007, Bloch served as National Co-Chair of Asian Pacific Americans for Mitt during Mitt Romney's
2008 presidential campaign.
Philanthropy and education work
During her career Bloch has engaged in a variety of non-profit educational endeavors, the majority of which seek to promote educational and cultural exchange between the US and China. In 1988, she and her husband Stuart Marshall Bloch established the F.Y. Chang Foundation in honor of Bloch's father, Chang Fuyun, the first Chinese national to graduate from
Harvard Law School. The foundation currently offers scholarships to Chinese students to study at Harvard Law.
From 1996-1998, Bloch was president and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation. In 1998, she turned her energies back toward China, first serving for a year as a visiting professor at the Institute for International Relations of the American Studies Center at
Peking University. At this time, Bloch became an advocate for expanding academic collaborations between Chinese and American universities, and in particular for expanding the role of
American Studies
American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory.
Schol ...
programs on Chinese university campuses, and simultaneously served as executive vice chairman of Peking University's American Studies Center.
Soon after she founded the
US-China Education Trust, an educational
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
which sponsors education and exchange programs for Chinese and American students and scholars. The nonprofit held its first collaborative program, an academic workshop on the
US Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...
, at
Fudan University
Fudan University () is a national public research university in Shanghai, China. Fudan is a member of the C9 League, Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First Class University identified by the Ministry of Education of China. It is als ...
in 2001. Bloch currently serves as President of the
US-China Education Trust.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloch, Julia Chang
Atlantic Council
Ambassadors of the United States to Nepal
American women ambassadors
1942 births
Living people
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
American politicians of Chinese descent
American women chief executives
University of California, Berkeley alumni
People from San Francisco
Chinese Civil War refugees
Lowell High School (San Francisco) alumni
20th-century American diplomats
20th-century American women
21st-century American women