| Membership: | By invitation |
| Leader Title: | President |
| Leader Name: | Stephen Orlins |
| Leader Title2: | Vice President |
| Leader Name2: | Jan Berris |
| Purpose: | To promote United States-China relations |
| Headquarters: | 6 E. 43 Street, 24th Floor, Manhattan |
| Type: | 501(c)3 organization |
| Tax Id: | 13-2566973 |
The National Committee on United States China Relations (NCUSCR) is a nonprofit organization and advisory body founded in 1966 to encourage understanding and cooperation between the United States and China. Since 1966, the committee has conducted exchanges, educational, and policy activities in the areas of politics and security, education, governance and civil society, economic cooperation, media, and transnational issues, addressing these topics with respect to Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
The National Committee on United States–China Relations was founded in 1966 by a coalition of academic "China watchers," civic, religious, and business leaders who were concerned with China's isolation and American apparent interest in maintaining that situation. Cecil Thomas, a Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, was influential in recruiting and organizing them, and became the organization's first executive director. The founders included figures in the China field such as Robert A. Scalapino, A. Doak Barnett, Alexander Eckstein, and Lucian Pye. Their aim was to build a network from a broad political spectrum, committed to fostering open discussion and to improving U.S. policy toward China.
The committee was energized by helping to organize two groundbreaking conferences: the “Institute on China Today” held at University of California, Berkeley in 1964, and the “National Conference on the United States and China” in Washington, D.C. in 1965. Together, they gave a platform to debate the reshaping of the approach towards China. There was heated disagreement among even the scholars, but figures such as Henry Luce and American businessmen argued against defenders of the policy. There was widespread interest from newspapers, television, and the general public.
Several presidents had wanted to move closer to normalization of relations with China but faced resistance in Congress.[1] In 1971, the committee hosted a roundtable featuring guest speakers from countries that had begun exchanges with China in advance of official diplomatic relations.[2] Members of the committee expressed the view that like these countries, Americans could develop ad hoc cooperative relations with China. The committee's mission was to educate the public, but it soon found itself in the position to offer information and advice to President Lyndon B. Johnson and other political leaders. In 1972, it co-hosted the Chinese table tennis team's tour of the United States, a widely publicized event that captured world attention. The historic two-way exchange by American and Chinese table tennis teams became known as Ping Pong Diplomacy.[3]
The Committee originally had intended to be only a "catalyst" in opening relations with China, a short-term temporary goal. But a change in this attitude came when it was called upon to manage the visit of the Chinese table-tennis team, part of American ping-pong diplomacy. Because there were no official diplomatic relations between the two countries, the State Department had to rely on private resources. The Committee stepped in, raised money, and made arrangements. This experience changed the committee's relations with American and Chinese officials, as well as its own goals.[4] In the 1980s, the Committee expanded its work to promote sustained interactions between influential Chinese and Americans in governance, media, urban planning, international relations, and economic management.
On 15 November 2023, the National Committee on United States–China Relations and the US-China Business Council hosted a banquet with Xi Jinping for US business executives during the APEC United States 2023 meeting.[5] [6] The banquet drew questions from media about attendees and criticism from the United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.[7] [8] [9]