On October 7th, Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch participated in the US-Asia Institute’s US-China Regional Dialogue series as a featured panelist, alongside Minister Counselor of Cultural Affairs Zhao Haisheng, from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, Jan Berris, Vice President of the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Deborah Lehr, Vice Chairman and Executive Director of the Paulson Institute. The panel focused on cultural, educational, and people-to-people exchanges. Ambassador Bloch spoke of the importance of people-to-people relations, and stated that they are more important than ever, noting that the US-China relationship is currently “at its lowest point since normalization of relations in 1972.” The bilateral relationship has shifted away from cooperative towards competitive, and the Ambassador explained that strategic distrust from both countries is responsible for this shift. The solution, she states, is mutual understanding. This is demonstrated in the success of USCET, founded by Ambassador Bloch in 2004. USCET’s success can be directly attributed to the continuance of people-to-people exchanges. Today, even virtual exchanges, allow “both sides to sustain good will and avoid misunderstandings that can lead to war.” It is events like the US-Asia Institute’s US-China Regional Dialogue that will build mutual understanding and push the US-China relationship back towards cooperation.