The 1990 Institute

The 1990 Institute is a San Francisco- based not-for-profit organisation with a mission to broaden understanding and build trust between the people of the United States and China through education, philanthropy and collaboration. The Institute has had nearly three decades of impact with programs both within China and the United States and is currently managed by academic, business and community leaders.^[1]

History

Known for contributions to China's modernization and fostering stronger U.S.- China relations, the 1990 Institute was officially founded in 1990 by a volunteer group of prominent leaders in the community, education and business sectors.

The Founding Chairman was C.B. Sung, then Chairman of Unison Group, who brokered nearly 40 Sino-foreign joint ventures in China. The Founding President was Dr. Hang-Sheng Cheng, then Director of the Center for Pacific Basin Studies at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. Other notable early co-founders include Senator Adlai Stevenson III; James Luce; Robert Scalpino, the National Committee of U.S.- China Relations's first chairman; the former U.S. Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank Linda Tsao Yang; Roz Koo, founding President of Self-Help for the Elderly; and architect Billy Lee.

For over 25 years, the Institute has sought to meet the changing Sino- U.S. needs relative to the times. It began in the 1990s as a think tank dedicated to the examination of current issues in China and produced books and issue papers such as China's Economic Reform by Walter Galenson, which was presented to China's President Jiang Zemin, and Fiscal Policy in China Taxation and Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations by Roy W. Bahl. In addition, it sponsored conferences and symposia on various topics such as the reform of state-owned enterprise governance in China and Women, Leadership & Sustainability.

The Institute then expanded its range of its activities to become an action-oriented think tank in the 2000s, setting out to improve the educational opportunities for girls, enhancing cross-cultural communications, and launching direct assistance programs and philanthropy initiatives in China through microfinance and environmental initiatives, and school construction.

In the 2010s, the Institute slowly gravitated its focus to running national education and cross-cultural programs in the United States. Noting a series of surveys that had shown significant perception gaps between Americans and Chinese, inaccurate cultural portrayals of each country and its people from widespread media sources, and a pressing need to contribute to the world's most important bilateral relationship of the 21st Century, the 1990 Institute developed its "CHINA NOW" initiatives to create more learning opportunities about contemporary China.

Its U.S.-based "CHINA NOW" educational initiatives features youth exchange programs, online video contests, and teacher training workshops and lesson plan contests on modern China material. In addition, with the goal of building a community of U.S.-China thought leaders, 1990 launched its CHINA NOW Speaker Series, hosting prominent speakers including Hank Paulson, Brian Yang of Alibaba, and Hudson Yang from Fresh Off the Boat.

Activities

Spring Bud (Dragon Fund)

The programme aims to improve the educational opportunities by providing scholarships to girls in rural villages in Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces over a 13-year period – from 4th grade to college. The team aims to 1,000 out of 280,000 impoverished girls in Shaanxi Province beginning in 2001. As of 2012, with Rosalyn Koo's annual visit, she confirmed the instituted had assisted over 1000 girls and 168 of them had gone on to university studies.^[2]

Children, Art and the Environment Project (CAEP)

CAEP promotes friendship and appreciation between the children and teachers in U.S. and China through the universal language of art. The Institute funds the China National Children’s Centre (CNCC) which serves as a clearinghouse for visiting students from the U.S. Another initiative is the Magic Moment Fellowship, which supports and partially funds students from the U.S. to embark on cultural trips to China. It educates and spreads the message of environmental protection among children and youths in both countries too.^[3]

The Micro-finance Project

The Pucheng County Women's Sustainable Development Association (PCWSDA) was formed by the Institute in 2005 to provide access to capital, business education and strategy to poor families so that they could establish or expand micro businesses. To date, it has distributed over 7,700 loans worth more than US$1.9 million. It has achieved a 100 percent loan repayment record and these efforts have increased household income by up to 100 percent and improved their standard of living. It collaborates with Plan China and the Pucheng County Women’s Federation to provide technical and social services to its clients.

Biofuels Research

The Institute played a vital role in creating the U.S.-China Green Energy Council, which was launched in San Francisco in 2008 with the focus on increasing energy efficiency in the short term and developing sustainable, carbon-neutral energy sources in the long run. The council brings together leading clean energy experts from business, government, and academia from both the U.S. and China.

School Construction

To replace two schools destroyed by the Sichuan earthquake in Zhang Jia Yin Township, PaoJi City, a group of skilled volunteers from the U.S. and China will be working together to build a green campus. The new campus has a capacity of 350 students will be able to withstand a magnitude 8.0 earthquake.

Youth Voices on China

The Youth Voices on China national online video contest is the 1990 Institute’s signature education initiative to foster better global awareness among young people and inspire them to think deeply about U.S.- China relations. The contest offers $30K in cash and prizes and partners with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) to showcase winning films at CAAMFest, an international Asian American and Asian film festival. It leverages the power of video to empower youth – powerful agents of social change and our next generation leaders – to unleash their creativity, influence perceptions, and spark change. With a star judging panel led by actress Joan Chen and 30+ prominent Hollywood stars, producers, and education and business leaders, Youth Voices on China is a powerful engine of media-inspired change and cross-cultural collaboration.

The 2015 inaugural contest topic was "Why China? What does China mean to you?" Over 80 videos from 109 students representing 8 states and 40 schools were submitted, and over 17K video views were recorded by global audience accessing the student films via social media and public voting campaigns.

2016 contest will focus on sending "Videograms to the White House," where students will propose a cultural exchange idea and urge the President to build a more Positive Relationship with China. The 2016 YVOC contest will also expand to include a film school video division and a middle school essay division.

CHINA NOW | For Teachers

The CHINA NOW For Teachers annual workshop brings together U.S.- China experts and U.S. teachers in an interactive forum to discuss current China topics and provides online resources for teaching and lesson plan development. The workshop features 40-60 teachers each year and also includes a $5K Lesson Plan Contest, where teachers are encouraged to submit lesson plans on modern China. The 2015 subject theme was "Modern China through the Lens of Social Change and Reform."

CHINA NOW | Speaker Series

The 1990 Institute seeks to build a community of U.S.-China thought leaders and host events, power luncheons, and films to engage the larger community across Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Previous speakers include Hank Paulson, former Secretary of the Treasury and CEO of Goldman Sachs; Brian Wong, Vice President of the Alibaba Group; leading equity analyst Ming Zhao from 86Research, and actor Hudson Yang from Fresh Off the Boat.

America-China Exchange (ACE)

ACE is a month-long student summer exchange and community service program in Qiaoqi and California. The Institute partners with the Jiangyin Qiaoqi Primary School, and 120 U.S. and China students and teachers attend yearly to teach English and participate in cross-cultural activities. Given the tremendous success of previous ACE programs and the lifelong benefits students and teachers received from the program, the Institute is hoping to launch ACE Xian in 2016, where American and Chinese high school students can engage in cross-cultural exchange.

Further reading

"The 1990s Institute: Chinese-Americans Bridge the Pacific," Ch 3 in Norton Wheeler The Role of American NGOs in China's Modernization: Invited Influence. New York: Routledge, Asia's Transformations, 2012. ISBN 9780415506571 (hardback); ISBN 9780203100011 (ebook).

Notes