Daughter of two 'moms'

Florence Fang stands in front of the newspaper replicas that reported her family's purchase of the San Francisco Examiner in 2000. Chang Jun / China Daily

Her indefatigable efforts have helped nurture better communications between China and the United States, Chang Jun reports in San Francisco.

Florence Fang is a daughter of two "moms".

"I was born in China and adopted by the United States," says the chairwoman of the Florence Fang Family Foundation and a renowned entrepreneur and philanthropist in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

"There is no such thing that my love to one country overweighs the other. The portion and quality of my loves for the two moms are the same," says the 79-year-old, adding that she strives to bring the two nations closer.

That strong sense of mixed-nationality, nurtured by ups and downs of the US-China relationship, might help explain why for years she has been so giving with her time and efforts to promote better communications between the two countries, as well as with her financial support, which has escalated to more than $6 million.

Her most recent achievement, Fang says, was in late November when she flew to Washington to attend the first annual meeting of the 100,000 Strong Foundation as one of its founding members to introduce Vice-Premier Liu Yandong to attendees in January 2013. The nonprofit foundation is dedicated to sending 100,000 American students to study in China within four years.

Liu touted the 100,000 Strong Initiative as a remarkable fruit on the big tree of China-US people-to-people exchanges. More than 68,000 American students in the past three years have gone to China to study under the initiative, which was first announced by US President Barack Obama in Shanghai in November 2009 and formalized in 2010 by the then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

"The establishment of the 100,000 Strong Foundation has provided not only a new path but also a fresh drive for implementing the initiative and deepening people-to-people exchanges," Liu said in remarks to an audience of some 200 people in the School of International Service at American University on Nov 21.

A report by the Institute of International Education released in November indicates that Chinese students studying at US universities and colleges numbered 235,000 in 2012-13, accounting for roughly 30 percent of the international student population in the US.