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#233 2/5 Monthly Meeting; USHCA; Restore Scholarship Programs; Enter The Dragon; More

In This Issue #233

·       2024/02/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

·       US Heartland China Association (USHCA)

·       Call to Restore Severed Scholarship Program

·       Enter The (Year of The) Dragon

·       News and Activities for the Communities

 

2024/02/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting

The next APA Justice monthly meeting will be held via Zoom on Monday, February 5, 2024, starting at 1:55 pm ET.  In addition to updates by Nisha Ramachandran, Executive Director, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC); Joanna YangQing Derman, Director, Advancing Justice | AAJC; and Gisela Perez Kusakawa, Executive Director, Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), invited and confirmed speakers are:

 

·       Erika Moritsugu (invited), Deputy Assistant to the President and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Senior Liaison, The White House, will kick off the Lunar New Year by reviewing the Year of the Rabbit (2023) and looking forward to the Year of the Dragon (2024).

·       Lora Lumpe, Chief Executive Officer, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, will tell us about the Quincy Institute and its plans and activities.  The Quincy Institute promotes ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war, toward military restraint and diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace in a world where peace is the norm and war is the exception.  On November 13, 2023, it led a coalition of diverse organizations in a letter to Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping calling for more stable and productive bilateral ties.

·       Min Fan 范敏, Executive Director, US Heartland China Association (USHCA) will introduce USHCA and describe its mission and activities.  See below for more description of USHCA. 

·       Sandy Shan, Executive Director, Justice is Global, will share how individuals and organizations can help support grassroot rollout of a US-China climate cooperation bill this spring.  In 2020 and 2022, Justice is Global conducted two community canvassing projects that engaged swing state voters susceptible to anti-immigrant sentiments in conversations about the future of US-China cooperation. The positive outcomes from these two projects informed Justice is Global’s current work in supporting the rollout of a climate cooperation bill.

 

The virtual monthly meeting is by invitation only. It is closed to the press. If you wish to join, either one time or for future meetings, please contact one of the co-organizers of APA Justice - Steven Pei 白先慎Vincent Wang 王文奎, and Jeremy Wu 胡善庆 - or send a message to contact@apajustice.orgYear of The Dragon - Empowering Justice, Embracing ChangeAccording to ChatGPT, "Empowering Justice, Embracing Change: Welcoming the Year of the Dragon 2024 with APA Justice.  May this year be a symbol of strength, resilience, and transformative justice for the Asian American community.  Let us unite, roar against injustice, and soar towards a future where equality prevails.  Happy Lunar New Year from APA Justice - Advocating for a brighter and more just tomorrow!" 

 

US Heartland China Association (USHCA)


 

Originally the Midwest U.S.-China Foundation, US Heartland China Association (USHCA) was founded by U.S. Senator Adlai Stevenson (IL); John Rodgers, Lawyer and Professor, and Governor Bob Holden (MO), former Chairman of the Midwest Governors Association. USHCA covers 20 states that stretch from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. 430 Fortune 1000 companies are headquartered in 84 of the cities within the Heartland region. Our mayors lead 37 of the 100 largest cities in the United States. In the first such visit since the pandemic; USHCA led a bipartisan delegation of six U.S. mayors representing communities along the Mississippi River Basin to visit their counterparts in the People's Republic of China in November 2023.  Watch the video of the visit:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJsS8beUppg (8:25). The six mayors are:

·       Mayor Jim Brainard, Carmel, Indiana

·       Mayor Robyn Tannehill, Oxford, Mississippi

·       Mayor Barbara Buffaloe, Columbia, Missouri

·       Mayor Kim Norton, Rochester, Minnesota

·       Mayor Lee Harris, Shelby County, Tennessee

·       Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, Jackson, Mississippi

Min Fan 范敏, Executive Director of USHCA will introduce USHCA and describe its mission and activities at the February 5 APA Justice monthly meeting. 

 

Call to Restore Severed Scholarship Program 


 

According to a report by Diplomatic Courier on January 31, 2024, nearly 300,000 Chinese higher–education students studied in the U.S. during the 2022–2023 school year , while only around 350 U.S. students studied in China. Closing this gap will be key to improving U.S.–China relations in the long–term.In the 2022–2023 school year there were just under 300,000 Chinese higher–education students studying in America. That is down from a peak of over 370,000 in 2019–2020, yet China remains the largest source of international students in the U.S. education system. By contrast, it has been reported that there are roughly 350 American students currently studying in China [according to US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, that number has doubled to about 700 during the Jimmy Carter Forum last month], down from 11,639 in the 2018–2019 school year and its peak of just under 15,000 in 2011–2012. Much of this drop has to do with the pandemic preventing study in China, but also deteriorating relations have kept American students away.What is the best method to increase this number? The U.S. should begin sending students to China again through programs like Fulbright, Peace Corps, and the Boren Awards, which have all been closed to China within the past four years.Peace Corps volunteers in China received notice in January 2020 that all programs in China were shutting down. President Donald Trump terminated the China and Hong Kong Fulbright programs on July 14, 2020 via executive order as a response to the Hong Kong national security law that broadly eroded Hong Kong’s independence. These moves were politically charged, short–sighted, and aimed at worsening U.S.–China relations. These programs have been questioned before as a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars, yet they have received bipartisan funding for decades. Shutting these programs down did not set back the Chinese government, but it did constrain American students, would–be China experts, and U.S. national security interests.

Why should the U.S. reinstate these programs and increase the number of American students studying in China? Firstly, these programs create the next generation of China experts. Secondly, the U.S. should reimplement these programs to improve U.S.–China relations. There is a bill to bring back the Fulbright program, but it has been sitting in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for almost a year with three cosponsors. These programs also help improve relations in the day–to–day lives of citizens. For many Chinese, the first American they met was in one of these programs. Participants become pseudo–ambassadors for America, sharing our values and views with Chinese who otherwise might never have heard directly from an American.Ultimately, suspending the Fulbright, Peace Corps, and Boren Awards for Americans in China harms, rather than protects, national security and the future of U.S.–China relations. A crucial step in improving and preparing for the future of U.S.–China relations is to reestablish these government–funded grants. This way, future public servants will be able to more accurately understand, interact with, and create policy on China.Read the Diplomatic Courier report: https://bit.ly/3HGQrRO According to AP News on January 29, 2024, the Chinese government has protested to the United States over the treatment of Chinese arriving to study in America, saying some have been interrogated for hours, had their electronic devices checked and in some cases were forcibly deported from the country.

Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador in Washington, said dozens of Chinese holding valid visas have been denied entry over the past few months when returning to school from overseas travel or visiting relatives in China.  The protest comes as the U.S. and China try to boost student and other exchanges to shore up their relations, which have turned confrontational in recent years over trade, technology, human rights and, more fundamentally, the future direction of the world.China’s state media have reported at least three cases since November at Dulles where Chinese students lost their valid student visas, received a five-year entry ban and were repatriated following long hours of interrogations.  They were asked if their studies were financed by the Chinese government, if they were members of the Chinese Communist Party or its youth arm, and if their research was linked to the Chinese government, the Chinese military or key state laboratories. The students were headed to the National Cancer Institute, Yale University and the University of Maryland respectively.Read the AP News report: https://bit.ly/3OpWMF5

 

Enter The (Year of The) Dragon


 

According to NBC News, it is the Year of the Dragon, and people can expect a lot of good fortune — but only if they are harnessing the animal’s most important quality: compassion.Lunar New Year — which includes Chinese New Year, Seollal in Korea, Tet in Vietnam and more — will begin February 10, kicking off more than two weeks of festivities, customs and plenty of feasts. It celebrates the arrival of spring and the start of a fresh year based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar.The upcoming year’s dragon sign is perhaps the most popular zodiac creature, associated with a host of positive qualities such as nobility, wealth and wisdom. The year’s dragon sign is, more specifically, a wood dragon. The element of wood is seen in Daoist tradition as a return to the natural state of being, which in the dragon’s case, points to a return to kindness. And Confucian thought interprets wood as a symbol of unlimited potential. The dragon, which corresponds to years 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012 and 2024, has long been associated with highly valued traits, according to Jonathan H. X. Lee, a professor of Chinese folklore and religion at San Francisco State University.  Those born in the year of the dragon are often said to be generous, make great leaders and have a lot of charisma. Read the NBC News report: https://nbcnews.to/47XogZy

 

News and Activities for the Communities

1.  APA Justice Community Calendar


 

Upcoming Events:2024/02/01 CAMDC Deadline for Essay Contest2024/02/04 Rep. Gene Wu's Town Hall Meeting2024/02/05 APA Justice Monthly Meeting2024/02/10 New Year's Day of the Year of the Dragon2024/02/13-15 Senior Executives Association Senior Executive Leadership Summit2024/02/13 Committee of 100: The Career Ceiling Challenges in Journalism Visit https://bit.ly/45KGyga for event details.

 

2. Committee of 100: The Career Ceiling Challenges in Journalism


 

WHAT: Committee of 100: The Career Ceiling Challenges in JournalismWHEN: February 13, 2024, 5:00 - 6:00 pm Eastern Time WHERE: Online Fireside ChatHOST: Committee of 100MODERATOR: Peter Young, Committee of 100 member and Chair of the Committee of 100 Asian American Career Ceiling InitiativeSPEAKERS: 

· Nicole Dungca, Investigative Reporter, Washington Post and President of the Asian American Journalist Association

· Amy Qin, National Correspondent, The New York Times

DESCRIPTION: Asian Americans have faced significant career obstacles in the Journalism industry, as is true in many industries,. Our two panelists will share their observations about the career ceilings problem in Journalism, their own personal experiences, and the advice that they would give to Asian Americans pursuing careers in the industry.REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/3u0p6qM

 

3.  SEA: Senior Executive Leadership Summit


 

WHAT: Hybrid Event 2024 Senior Executive Leadership SummitWHEN: February 13-15, 2024 WHERE: Online and In-Person: Partnership for Public Service, 600 14th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005HOST: Senior Executives AssociationDESCRIPTION: As the premier annual conference on public service leadership, the summit will inspire, develop and connect leaders across government, with a focus on current and aspiring Senior Executive Service (SES) members. This three-day event will include world-class keynote speakers, esteemed panels and productive group breakout discussions that will address the current obstacles federal leaders are facing and how to break boundaries and lead despite these challenges.REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/3HDSaay

February 1, 2024

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