Chongqing - A delegation of eight experts and scholars from the Chinese American Professionals Association (CAPA) visited Eling Park in Yuzhong District, accompanied by officials from the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Chongqing Municipal Committee and the local overseas Chinese federation on Thursday.

Liu Rongwen (center), president of the Chinese American Professionals Association, takes notes during a meeting with officials from Chongqing’s publicity department at the former site of the Australian Legation in Eling Park, Yuzhong District on June 20, 2024. (Photo/ Truman Peng)

Government officials warmly welcomed the CAPA delegation at the former Australian Legation in Eling Park. The group then toured other foreign legations in the park, all established during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression when Chongqing was the wartime capital.

CAPA Chairman Jimmy Lin, a veteran transportation engineer and former Diamond Bar, California mayor, led the group. Since 1993, Lin has visited the Chinese mainland over 100 times, contributing his transportation expertise to many city expressway projects.

“We are here to develop an academic, intellectual exchange with different groups of people and associations in different cities and promote understanding,” Lin said. “Using the medium like us, we can help promote communication between the two countries.”

CAPA President Liu Rongwen, who is also a tenured professor in Chinese language and culture at East Los Angeles College, said the delegation aims to see the great changes taking place in the Chinese mainland since its reform and opening up over four decades ago.

Dr. Xu Yongtai from Oxford's St John's College expressed willingness to leverage his connections at the university to support Chinese scholars and promote the Belt and Road Initiative. Additionally, Xu has actively advocated for the return of stolen cultural relics to China.

Aside from promoting people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States, the eight-person CAPA delegation's scheduled tour, from southern Shenzhen to eastern Shanghai, from western Chongqing to northern Beijing, is also a trip to revisit ancestral homes and seek family roots.

Former CAPA President Sherman Lee, whose father was a graduate of the Huangpu Military Academy and a lieutenant general in the Kuomintang army, became visibly emotional when recalling his father’s story of fighting on the front line in the War of Resistance. 

Lee admitted this was his first visit to Chongqing, despite his late father's repeated invitations to visit their ancestral home in China. “I sincerely hope that more American people can come to see the real China and communicate directly with the ordinary Chinese people,” Lee added.

Founded in 1979, the Chinese American Professionals Association is a non-profit organization that comprises Chinese American professionals in various fields, including engineers, scientists, economists, lawyers, and politicians.