Thirty-five years ago, Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch and Mr. Stuart Bloch endowed the F.Y. Chang Fund for the Study of Chinese Law at Harvard Law School in honor of Ambassador Bloch’s late father, Mr. Fuyun Chang. F.Y. Chang was the first Boxer Indemnity Scholarship recipient to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1917. The program has educated more than 80 Chinese legal scholars to date.
On a sunny fall day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, F.Y. Chang scholars from across the decades, distinguished guests, and current students gathered to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the F.Y. Chang Scholarship.
Mr. F.Y. Chang, a preeminent educator, diplomat, statesman, and art collector, dedicated his life to modernizing China and reforming China’s customs service. Ambassador Bloch opened the celebration with her remarks titled “My Father’s Legacy“, where she recalled that her “father once said: ‘A Harvard education gives me a free mind.’ It taught him how to be free and humane, putting the interest of his country above personal gain.”
Professor William Alford, the Jerome A. and Joan Cohen Professor of East Asian Legal Studies, Director of East Asian Legal Studies, Chair of Harvard Law School Project on Disability, and Senior Advisor for Graduate and International Legal Studies introduced the F.Y. Chang Scholars from the 1990s and the early 2000s. They each shared about their careers, how their Harvard education has shaped their life and careers, and their hopes for the future.
Ji Jun, an F.Y. Chang Scholar and a Harvard LLM graduate in 1998, is the Managing Partner of Anli Partners in Beijing. He shared insights from his experience representing multinational companies in intellectual property infringement disputes. Among his career achievements, he secured a 200-million RMB verdict for a multinational corporation, with this case featured in the Selected Cases of Intellectual Property Law by the Supreme Court in China. Ji credited his Harvard experience with shaping his future success, emphasizing the support and guidance he received from mentors, who propelled him up through each stage of his career and pushed him forward to reach new heights along the way.
Huang Haifeng, a 2003 F.Y. Chang Scholar and a Harvard LLM graduate, is a partner at Jones Day in Beijing. Over his career, he has led teams advising clients on complex intellectual property matters involving advanced technology. He has also contributed to U.S.-China relations by organizing visits for prominent Chinese judges and members of the judiciary to Harvard Law School.
Professor Yu Xingzhong, a 1995 F.Y. Chang Scholar and a Harvard S.J.D. graduate, is Chair Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Macau. His work centers on Chinese law and legal history, social theory, comparative legal philosophy, and intelligent technology and law. Prior to joining the University of Macau, he taught at Cornell Law School for a decade. Reflecting on his time at Harvard, he recalls how his professors and mentors guided his academic interests when he came to Cambridge, MA, as a young scholar from China.
Dr. Cui Fengming is the Director of China Program at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and was an East Asian Legal Studies Research Fellow from 2013 to 2017. Dr. Cui Fengming shared her experience working with Professor William Alford on the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD) since June 2008. She is also an adjunct professor of Renmin University of China Law School and a senior fellow at the Renmin University of China Disability Law Clinic.
Professor Steven Wang moderated the second panel of recent F.Y. Chang Scholars. Professor Wang serves as one of the youngest adjunct lecturers at Harvard Law School (on US-China relations) and University of Toronto (on AI and corporate governance). He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. and has also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard International Law Journal. Professor Wang also founded a social enterprise in Asia supported by the Gates Foundation, which cultivates the next generation of social innovation leaders. This enterprise has been recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 China. Professor Wang asked the panelists to share their experiences at HLS and their hopes for the future.
Wang Yikai, a 2020 F.Y. Chang Scholar and a Harvard LLM graduate, is an Associate at Sidley Austin LLP in Beijing. In addition to his practice focusing on white-collar defense and investigations in the food, drug, and medical device sectors, he has worked on pro bono cases in disability law and workers’ compensation, inspired by the work of Dr. Cui Fengming on the Harvard Project on Disability. His most memorable pro bono case was representing a woman suing her late husband’s employer after he took his life due to extreme working conditions. Reflecting on this experience, Yikai shared, “There’s nothing more inspiring than seeing a broken woman rebuild her life”. Through his work, he has found that while he helps his clients, they also help him in turn, making him reexamine the purpose and meaning of law practice. He hopes to help marginalized people to build a more accessible and inclusive society through his work.
Professor Wang Yueduan, a self-described “law degree collector,” through the F.Y. Chang scholarship, earned his J.D. in 2015 and S.J.D. in 2021 from HLS. His research focuses on comparative judicial politics and illiberal/authoritarian constitutions. His dissertation-turned-book Experimentalist Constitutions: Subnational Innovation in China, India, and the United States was recently published by the Harvard Asia Center.
During his time at HLS, Professor Wang overlapped with his S.J.D. classmate, Professor Xia Ying of the University of Hong Kong, a 2020 F.Y. Chang Scholar and S.J.D. graduate. They fondly recalled the warmth and kindness of the HLS community. Like most law students, they spent long hours in the library, each assigned to a research cubicle. Sometimes, they would take turns napping on a small folding bed stored in the cubicle. When an HLS staff member discovered the bed, she asked Yueduan with concern, “Are you homeless?” She added that, if so, HLS had emergency financial assistance programs available. Yueduan and Xia remembered fondly this small gesture of kindness to this day.
Professor Xia Ying, Assistant Professor of the University of Hong Kong, described her HLS years as “life-changing.” She was awarded the Yong K. Kim ’95 Memorial Prize for her work on the connections between China’s environmental campaign and the international trade in waste. Her education at HLS taught her the skills to engage with a broader community of diverse perspectives. She hopes to contribute to the studies of societal and governmental aspects of international and environmental law.
Ms. Li Xuejiao, an F.Y. Chang Scholar and a current S.J.D. student, focuses her research on economic sanctions and export control. Reflecting on her experience, she shared that alumni and mentors at HLS have inspired her to pursue her dreams and strive to be her best self.
Professor Mark Wu, Henry L. Stimson, Professor of Law, Faculty Co-Director of Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and Faculty Director of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, then introduced the keynote speaker, Mr. Li Bo. Humorously, Professor Wu thanked Mr. F.Y. Chang’s science teacher, who had advised Mr. Chang that “if you want to become a football player, go to Yale. If you want to become a scholar, go to Harvard”. Professor Wu stated that if it had not been for that science teacher, the celebration might have been held elsewhere.
The keynote speaker Mr. Li Bo, Deputy Managing Director at the IMF, gave a talk titled Climate Policy: International Legal Perspective, closing the anniversary celebration. Mr. Li is an F.Y. Chang scholar and he received his J.D. from HLS in 1999. He is responsible for the IMF’s work on about 90 countries as well as on a wide range of policy issues. Before joining the IMF, Mr. Li was the Deputy Governor at the People’s Bank of China. Mr. Li served as Vice Mayor of Chongqing—China’s largest municipality, with a population of over 30 million—where he oversaw the city’s financial sector development, international trade, and foreign direct investment. Mr. Li was also Vice Chairman of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. He started his career at the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was a practicing attorney for five years. Mr. Li holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Boston University, both in economics, as well as a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He received his undergraduate education from Renmin University of China in Beijing.
Following the anniversary celebration, Professor Dongsheng Zang, a 2004 F.Y. Chang Scholar, now Associate Professor of Law at University of Washington, gave a talk on China’s Reception of the AI Revolution.