China Society Enters New Year with Great Expectations
with its Fifth Anniversary Celebration and First US-China Relations Leadership Award
Report by Jessica Yi

December 2, 2010

In the nation’s capital, China Society held a celebratory cocktail reception for its fifth anniversary on December 2nd and awarded the “US-China Relations Leadership Award” to former US Congressman Mathew Salmon, the first member in the US Congress to speak Mandarin Chinese. China Society board chairman, John Dickson, and president, Yeqing (Victor) Li, together presented the award to Salmon for his continuous devotion to cultural exchange and economic cooperation between China and the U.S.
From 1995 – 01, Salmon served as Arizona’s Congressman on the International Relations Committee, in addition to several other committees. He also led many Congressional delegations to China in order to improve trade and bilateral relationships. He was also instrumental in bringing basketball star, Yao Ming, into the NBA. As a board director of China Society, he has provided tremendous support, such as participating at the Sizhuan Earthquake Relief Fundraiser, which helped rebuild the Dongxihe Washington Elementary School in Guangyuan city of Sichuan Province.
In his acceptance speech, Salmon highlighted the relationship between China and America as the modern world’s most important bilateral relation, with global prosperity as the result of cooperation. In the same speech, however, Salmon also emphasized the challenges of Sino-American relations down the road, stating that mutual recognition and cooperation in place of competition is the road leading to true resolution of any tensions. Salmon also praised the achievements of China Society in its scant five years as an organization and expressed great expectations of its expansion plans abroad, already well under way. During his interview with Phoenix TV, he also highly anticipated the visit by President HU Jingtao next Jan. He recommended President Hu talk to American people rather than just to the US government through the media. He said that President has good stories to tell and he is a good man.
President Yeqing (Victor) Li recognized the contribution of board members, executive committee members, partners and volunteers and presented a slide show of depicting the growth and progress of China Society in the past five years, with the number of members burgeoning to over 3,000. Li also announced the “US-China Investment Forum” next year in May in partnership with the Center of China and Globalization and WRSA Chamber of Commerce of China led by Dr. Huiyao Wang. The event will explore both the challenges and opportunities of China investment in the US.
President of the Union of Chinese-American Professional Organizations, Shuigen Xiao, praised the achievements of organizations in the past years, specially thanking China Society for its contributions to the larger society thus far.
China Society also presented Service Award to Mr. Liang Shuai for his selfless service and dedication to China Society. Liang holds a graduate degree from the Bridgeport University in Connecticut, where he served as founder and founding president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.
The event lasted late into the night, with performances by Ms. Xiao Ling, a China Level-1 professional soprano at the Tianjin Opera House, and Kristie Di Lascio, a former Peace Corps member served in China for two years and a staff at the China Desk of the US Department of Commerce, who sang “Tibetan Plateau” in Chinese

Present at the event were China Society board directors: John Dickson (Board Chair); Yeqing Li (President); Former Congressman Matthew Salmon; Mrs. Martha Holdridge (wife to the former deputy director of the US Liaison office in Beijing assistant then director and later President Bush and former US Assistant Secretary of State); Ms. Suzanne Reynold Bennison (Founding Director of the Advisory Services of the US-China Business Council) ; Mr. Yubin Ye (Vice Board Chair of the Union of Chinese American Professional Organizations and former President of the Chinese Association of Science and Technology Washington, DC, chapter); well-known attorney Ms. Runan Zhang; Mr. Alan Shi Tan (entrepreneur and former president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association of Yale University), and so on.
The participating executive committee members were Ms. Jing Bai (founding board member and secretary general); Ms. Helen Hong Yeh (general coordinator of this event and former president of the Hunan Association); Ms. Helen Xiaoming Gao (MC and US State Department contractor); Mr. Shuai Liang; Ms. Cynthia Li Xu (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and Duke MBA). This event was supported by volunteers such as Mr. Leshuai Zhang (FDA), Ms. Yanfei Yang (Georgetown post doctor), Mr. Wei Liu (University of Maryland College Park), Ms. Yifei Zhong (George Washington University).
Also present were: Dr. Qiming Wei (former executive committee member of China Society, Johns Hopkins University professor and President of US Nano-Medicine Academy); Mr. Jun Wang (president of Education Association of China’s Tomorrow and husband of board member Mr. Linchun Li at World Bank); Ms. Lauren Johnston (World Bank and former Global Leadership Fellow at the World Economic Forum); Mr. Zhiyu Chen (carbon finance expert at World Bank); Ms. Katie Zhang (NIH); Mr. Chuck Miao (investor), etc..