Created by a group of students at Harvard, Tsinghua, and Peking Universities in cooperation with the Strategy Alpha International 2008 Beijing Olympics Foundation, IMUSE, or Initiating Mutual Understanding through Student Exchange, aims to increase understanding of modern China and stimulate discussion on the most pressing issues facing China today.

To this end, IMUSE has selected fifteen student delegates from Tsinghua and Peking Universities who will visit a number of North American universities during the IMUSE campus tour program in the spring of 2008. At each institution, the delegates will engage groups of journalists and student leaders before an audience in a moderated panel discussion on a number of different topics concerning China, such as its increasingly influential role in the global marketplace, its slowly westernizing culture, the balance between its environmental consciousness and its economic growth, and more; specific topics of discussion will be selected based on the results of the poll posted on this website.

In concert with these panel discussions, IMUSE will offer other on-campus events at each university, including talks by prominent guest speakers, documentary screenings, a photo festival, and a variety of school-specific workshops, performances, and other activities.

Since campus events are limited to select schools, IMUSE has also designed the "China in My Eyes" essay and photography competition, open to all North American college students, to encourage them to carefully examine their own views about China and convey their ideas through original essays or photographs. The grand-prize entrants of the essay and photography competitions will receive either a new laptop or an all-expenses-paid two-week trip to Beijing with the option of to becoming specially trained 2008 Beijing Olympics Volunteers. See the "China in My Eyes" page for more details.

On behalf of the IMUSE advisory board, welcome to our program!