The Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies is jointly administered by Nanjing University and The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The Center offers a two-year MA degree and a one-year graduate-level, residential program in Chinese and American studies with an interdisciplinary curriculum covering topics in international relations, economics, history, law and related social issues. American and International students focus on contemporary China in courses taught in Mandarin by Chinese professors, while Chinese students take courses form American faculty taught entirely in English.

Hopkins-Nanjing Center
Washington Office
1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036-2213 USA
Tel:202-663-5800 Fax: 202-663-7729 nanjing@jhu.edu

The Center

When the Hopkins-Nanjing Center was created, the presidents of both universities shared a common vision: One day, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Chinese Foreign Minister will find that they are both graduates of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies. Thus, the Center's mission is to develop and train professionals to provide leadership in managing successful bilateral and multilateral relationships involving China and the West in an increasingly complex international environment.

Vision

One day, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Chinese Foreign Minister will find that they are both graduates of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center, established in 1986, was the brainchild of then-Hopkins University President Steven Muller and then-Nanjing University President Kuang Yaming. Both men recognized the importance of mutual understanding to improved relations between China and the West, and agreed that the best way to achieve such understanding was to bring people together for an extended period of intense exposure to each other's history, culture, contemporary thought, and society. Such development and training of leaders in Sino-Western relations for the next century would certainly contribute to stable international relations in its broadest sense.

Together, these men conceived of a place where young, mid-career professionals from China and the West, in a range of fields including academia, law, journalism, government, and business, would live and study together for one year. This year at the Center would provide an important opportunity to deepen their understanding of the opposite culture and enrich their academic background in topics related to international relations.

In their vision, "mutual understanding" did not mean a cursory understanding resulting from short exposures or from book learning. Rather, the two Presidents intended for students at the Center to live closely together, come face-to-face with their misunderstandings, and work through them to reach a higher level of mutual respect and awareness, while enhancing their academic understanding of each other's history, political and economic conditions, and social realities. This particular awareness -- the result of a multi-disciplinary academic experience combined with informal, experiential learning opportunities -- would accompany the graduates of the Center throughout their lives, and would enhance their ability to manage professional situations, either in China or in the West, with sophistication and success.

In addition to the possibilities for individual professional success, Presidents Muller and Kuang also saw clearly how increasing the numbers of intelligent and aware professionals carrying out the specific business of China's relations with the West would have a profound affect on larger political relations as well.

Today, under the leadership of Presidents William R. Brody and Jiang Shusheng, the vision remains strong. And considering where the Center's more than one thousand alumni are today, a future in which leaders in a range of fields find that their counterparts are fellow-alumni of the Center is close at hand. The initial goal of recruiting students at the mid-point of their careers has proven difficult to achieve; students most often come to the Center immediately prior to embarking on their chosen career paths. However, this does not diminish the strength or the potential of the initial vision. The Center continues to create an environment in which Chinese and international students, and now visiting scholars of the Research Institute, are forced to confront their differences, recognize their areas of commonality, and forge enduring relationships.

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Mission

The mission of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center is to develop and train professionals to provide leadership in managing successful bilateral and multilateral relationships involving China and the West in an increasingly complex international environment.

This mission is accomplished by:

• providing graduate-level, multi-disciplinary education with a focus on international relations which adheres to high standards of scholarship and simultaneously takes a practical approach to preparing students and professionals for international careers in teaching, research, law, journalism, government, international public service, and business; and by

• promoting interaction among Chinese and international students through academic, professional, and recreational activities, resulting in deeper mutual understanding among all parties.

The curriculum at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center is designed to support this mission and includes the following unique features:

• a strong central focus on international relations, including international and comparative economics and political science, supplemented by courses in specific areas such as international and Chinese law, international trade and finance, and development economics;

• Chinese students study in English from an American faculty and international students study in Chinese from a Chinese faculty; and

• additional components which focus on area studies-American Studies for the Chinese students and Chinese Studies for the international students.

This design provides an incomparable opportunity for students to understand how each society views itself and how each society presents itself to others. The formal curriculum thus designed, coupled with housing arrangements which pair Chinese and international students as roommates and extracurricular activities in which both groups participate on a regular basis, form the core of the Hopkins-Nanjing program and cultivate the level of mutual understanding envisioned by Presidents Muller and Kuang to a degree unequaled by any other program in China.

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