Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch

The University of Kentucky presents Julia Chang Bloch.

Julia Chang Bloch, President of the US-China Education Trust (USCET), Former US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal

Julia Chang Bloch is President of the US-China Education Trust (USCET), a non-profit organization working in China to promote US-China relations through education and exchange. USCET works with a network of more than 60 Chinese institutions, and Ambassador Bloch serves as Distinguished Adviser or Visiting Professor at several top Beijing and Shanghai universities. 

Ambassador Bloch, the first Asian American to hold such rank in U.S. 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 U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal in 1989.  From 1981 to 1988, Ambassador Bloch served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator for Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance and as Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East, positions appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.  She also was the Chief Minority Counsel to a Senate Select Committee; a Senate professional staff member; the Deputy Director of the Office of African Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency; a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and an Associate of the U.S.-Japan Relations Program of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard.

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, where she created the Corporate Relations Department, heading the bank’s Public Relations, Government Affairs, and Public Policy operations. From 1996 to 1998, Ambassador Bloch moved into philanthropy, serving as President and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation, a private grant making institution, with $100 million in assets. Beginning in 1998, Ambassador Bloch shifted her focus to China, first 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 Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as the University of Maryland as Ambassador-in-Residence at the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs.

A native of China who came to the U.S. 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 was awarded an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Northeastern University in 1986.

Ambassador Bloch serves on a number of corporate and non-profit boards, including: Asia Institute for Political Economy, the University of HK, the Atlantic Council, Council of American Ambassadors, US Asia Pacific Council, Meridian International Center, World Affairs Council, the Fund for American Studies, and Penn Mutual Insurance Co.  She 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, a member of the Woodrow Wilson Council, as well as Trustee Emeriti of the Asia Society, Honorary Member of the Board of Directors of the Friends Society of the Asian Division, Library of Congress, and Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association.  A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and American Academy of Diplomacy, she also serves on the Edumasters International Advisory Committee and the Editorial Board of Berkshire Publishing Group’s Encyclopedia of China.

She has received numerous awards, and her publications include: Women and Diplomacy, Bonds Across Borders, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007; Nepal: End of Shangri-la, Liberal Democracy Nepal Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2005, America’s Love-Hate Relationship with China, American Forum Journal of the Fudan University Center of American Studies, 2003, Commercial Diplomacy, Living with China: US-China Relations in the 21^st Century, an American Assembly book, New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.  Japanese Foreign Aid and the Politics of Burden Sharing, Yen for Development, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1991.