GW Students Attend Event With Secretary Clinton to Launch Foundation Dedicated to Increasing U.S.-China Educational Ties

Several George Washington University students and recent graduates joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week to celebrate the launch of the 100 Thousand Strong Foundation, which will work to expand opportunities for American students to learn Mandarin and study abroad in China.

At the Jan. 24 launch event at the State Department, Secretary Clinton said that forging a successful future relationship between these two major world powers cannot be left to diplomats alone.

“Relationships government to government are obviously essential,” she said. “But it is those people-to-people ties that are going to determine the quality of the relationship for the future.”

The 100 Thousand Strong Foundation will extend the goals of the Obama administration’s “100 Thousand Strong Initiative,” which President Obama initially launched in 2010. The goal of that initiative was to encourage 100,000 American students to study in China in the subsequent four-year period. The 100 Thousand Strong Foundation will deepen U.S.-China relations via cultural and educational exchanges, government support for students, an annual conference on U.S.-China strategic partnerships and independent studies investigating the effect of U.S. study abroad programs in China.

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