12 April 2017, The US-China Strong Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to strengthening US-China ties, today announced its cooperation with WeChat, a leading mobile social communications service, to enhance US-China relations and expand Americans’ engagement with Chinese language, culture and citizens.

Figure: Florence Fang, Pioneer Honorary president of YRIC, one of the initiators of the China-US strong project, delivered a speech at the launching ceremony

Florence Fang, Pioneer Honorary president of YRIC, one of the initiators of the China-US strong project, delivered a peech about US-Chia relations. In her speech, she quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping as saying that the "The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step", hoping that the cooperation between the US-China Strong and WeChat can further strengthen US-China cross-cultural engagement. WeChat is the most popular social platform in China, we are looking forward to see more yong Americans can interact with their Chinese peers to gain a better mutual understanding, and more opportunities can be created from that.

Figure: Florence Fang, Pioneer Honorary president of YRIC, celebrating her birthday

In 2009, US President Barack Obama announced 100,000 Strong as a State Department initiative, aiming to promote 100,000 college students to study in China. With the full support of the Chinese and US governments, the "ten thousand strong" target is achieved in 2014 as scheduled. In September 2015, presidents Xi Jinping and Obama broadened the foundation's mission to include a major expansion of Mandarin language learning in the US K-12 system, and to determine the number of students in the United States to learn Chinese in five years from the previous 200,000 to 100 million people.

Ms. Fang as the Million Strong Intiative indicated that from the "hundred thousand strong" to "million strong", the US-China Strong Foundation has successfully completed the initial plan, one after another millions of American students has come to China to learn Chinese and Chinese culture.

Figure: Florence Fang (fifth from the right) and Liu Meng (six from the right) in the donation of the United States Flying Tigers a C-47 transport plane photo

The US-China Strong Foundation is a nonprofit organization that seeks to strengthen US-China relations. While the bilateral relationship impacts a range of critical global issues – security, trade and the economy, climate change and more – its foundation ultimately rests on people-to-people ties.