ABSTRACT
Chinese Americans often bring special resources to bilateral exchanges: trans-Pacific personal and family ties and bicultural skills that lubricate their navigation within two societies. Ethnic Chinese have, on occasion, played important roles in the National Committee on US–China Relations and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. In the case of The 1990 Institute, Chinese Americans have been indispensable from its inception, initiating the organization and constituting at least two-thirds of its leadership and membership. The Institute’s original mission was to provide research support for China’s economic reforms, as a way both to help the Chinese people and to improve US–China relations. Later, direct-action social reform projects were added to the agenda. Like other promoters of nongovernmental exchanges, The 1990 Institute has at times run up against competing agendas, not least those of the Chinese state, which continues to exert significant control over the nation’s expanding civil society.
