{{Short description|American diplomat}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Julia Chang Bloch | honorific_suffix = | image = Julia Chang Bloch 174-CD-L-06-07-13-A-001 (cropped).jpg | alt = | order = <!--Can be repeated up to 16 times by adding a number--> | ambassador_from = United States | country = Nepal | term_start = September 22, 1989 | term_end = May 20, 1993 | predecessor = Milton Frank | successor =Michael Malinowski | president = George H. W. Bush<br/>Bill Clinton |birth_date = {{birth year and age|1942}} |birth_place = Yantai, Republic of China |education = University of California, Berkeley<br/>Harvard University }}

'''Julia Chang Bloch''' ({{lang-zh|t=張之香|p=Zhāng Zhīxiāng}}; born 1942) is a Chinese American businessperson and diplomat, who was the first U.S. ambassador of Asian descent. She is the founder and executive chair of the US-China Education Trust.

==Life and political career== Bloch was born in Yantai (then known in English as Chefoo), Shandong Province, China, and moved to the US when she was nine. Her father was the first Chinese graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was classmates with Massachusetts senator Leverett Saltonstall. Saltonstall helped pass a law to allow her entire family to emigrate from Hong Kong to the US.<ref>{{Cite web |date=18 November 1993 |title=The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Women Ambassadors Series AMBASSADOR JULIA CHANG BLOCH |url=https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/BLOCH,%20Julia%20Chang.toc.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240716155523/https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/BLOCH,%20Julia%20Chang.toc.pdf |archive-date=16 July 2024 |access-date=16 July 2024 |website=Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training}}</ref> She grew up in San Francisco, where she attended Lowell High School, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Communications and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964, and a master's degree in Government and East Asia Regional Studies from Harvard University in 1967.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.americanambassadors.org/members/julia-chang-bloch |title=Julia Chang Bloch|publisher=Council of American Ambassadors|access-date=2017-07-04}}</ref> She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia from 1964-1965.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Penaranda |first=Ritz |date=2023-04-25 |title=International Victorious Woman Month: Celebrate some of Peace Corps Most Victorious and Inspirational Women |url=https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/international-victorious-woman-month-celebrate-some-of-peace-corps-most-victorious-and-inspirational-women/ |access-date=2026-01-16 |website=National Peace Corps Association |language=en}}</ref> From 1971 she was a staffer for the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, and thereafter worked in a number of other roles, including administering a food-aid program. She was appointed ambassador to Nepal by President George H. W. Bush in 1989, a post she held until 1993.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | title = Julia Chang Bloch | encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics | author = Jeffrey D. Schultz | publisher = Greenwood Press | year = 2000 | pages = 253–254 | isbn = 1-57356-148-7}}</ref> In 1993, Bloch left the public sector to become a group executive vice president at Bank of America, where she created the corporate relations department, heading the bank's public relations, government affairs and public policy operations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldaffairsdc.org/board.php|title=Board|publisher=World Affairs Council|access-date=2011-04-11|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501121003/http://www.worldaffairsdc.org/board.php|archive-date=2011-05-01}}</ref> In 2007, Bloch served as National Co-Chair of Asian Pacific Americans for Mitt during Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Proquest|date=5 September 2007|work=Targeted News Service|id={{ProQuest|468213074}}}}</ref>

==Philanthropy and education work== During her career Bloch has engaged in a variety of non-profit educational endeavors, the majority of which sought to promote educational and cultural exchange between the US and China. In 1988, she and her husband Stuart Marshall Bloch established the F.Y. Chang Foundation in honor of Bloch's father, Chang Fuyun, the first Chinese national to graduate from Harvard Law School.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/2006/summer/feature_1.php|title=Why China|publisher=Harvard Law Bulletin, Summer 2006|access-date=2011-04-11}}</ref> The foundation currently offers scholarships to Chinese students to study at Harvard Law.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uscet.net/template/page.cfm?id=8|title=F.Y. Chang Foundation|publisher=US-China Education Trust|access-date=2011-04-11|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101112060608/http://www.uscet.net/template/page.cfm?id=8|archive-date=2010-11-12}}</ref> From 1996-1998, Bloch was president and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation. In 1998, she turned her energies back toward China, first serving for a year as a visiting professor at the Institute for International Relations of the American Studies Center at Peking University. At this time, Bloch became an advocate for expanding academic collaborations between Chinese and American universities, and in particular for expanding the role of American Studies programs on Chinese university campuses, and simultaneously served as executive vice chairman of Peking University's American Studies Center.<ref>Julia Chang Bloch, "Keys to the Global Society," ''American Language Review,'' May–June 1999.</ref>

Soon afterwards she founded the US-China Education Trust, an educational non-profit which sponsors education and exchange programs for Chinese and American students and scholars. The nonprofit held its first collaborative program, an academic workshop on the US Congress, at Fudan University in 2001.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uscet.net/template/page.cfm?menu_id=104|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322143936/http://uscet.net/template/page.cfm?menu_id=104|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-03-22|title=USCET: A History of Fostering Scholarship and Exchange|publisher=US-China Education Trust|access-date=2011-04-11}}</ref> Bloch currently serves as Executive Chair of the US-China Education Trust.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uscet.net/template/page.cfm?menu_id=127|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322144459/http://www.uscet.net/template/page.cfm?menu_id=127|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-03-22|title=Julia Chang Bloch|publisher=US-China Education Trust|access-date=2011-04-11}}</ref>

==References== <references/>

{{s-start}} {{s-dip}} {{succession box | title = United States Ambassador to Nepal | before = Milton Frank | after = Michael Malinowski | years = 1989–1993 }} {{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloch, Julia Chang}} Category:Atlantic Council Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Nepal Category:Women ambassadors of the United States Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Category:American politicians of Chinese descent Category:American women chief executives Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Refugees of the Chinese Civil War Category:Lowell High School (San Francisco) alumni Category:20th-century American diplomats Category:20th-century American businesswomen Category:20th-century American businesspeople Category:21st-century American women Category:Businesspeople from San Francisco