A passerby near the Temple Theater this weekend could be forgiven for thinking that a US-football style pep rally was going on inside. But attendees at the launch of the US embassy's Project Pengyou were cheering for a new outreach program that hopes to rally a global community of Americans who have lived and worked in China.

"I may hold the official title of US ambassador to China," said keynote speaker Gary Locke on Saturday night, "but you are the everyday US ambassadors, people who are working all over this country in business, in education, and in government relations."

Holly Chang, director of Project Pengyou, said the effort to mobilize America's "China alumni" was launched with funding from the Ford Foundation to support US President Barack Obama's "100,000 Strong Initiative". That campaign is designed to increase the number of young Americans who come to study in China.

A week of cross-cultural festivities kicked off on Saturday with an exhibition basketball game and concludes Dec 17 with a "Booey Lehoo" concert at the National Indoor Stadium featuring Will.I.Am and John Legend.

Americans have much to learn about China, Locke said, noting that "while 150,000 Chinese students have come to the US to study in the US, unfortunately only about 14,000 US students have come to Chinese universities." The US State Department says 600 times more Chinese study the English language than Americans study Mandarin, and Locke said this imbalance in knowledge can undermine strategic trust between the two countries.

More people-to-people contact is essential, he said.

"There is virtually nothing in the world of any consequence that can be solved without the participation of the US and China," Locke said to the group of about 200 expats who have spent considerable time in China.

"Your deep understanding of China will serve you and America very well. That's why we're looking for your help."

John Fitzgerald, China director for the Ford Foundation, said the foundation has invested $300 million in China since 1979 to promote education and exchange programs, and helped to rebuild social sciences in Chinese universities after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). Before that, he said, the Ford Foundation invested $80 million in the US during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to endow China studies programs in the US.

While Locke and other speakers started the program with the enthusiasm of a pep rally, online media expert Kaiser Kuo ended the event with a sense of urgency and concern.

"It wasn't long ago that encounters between the two countries were pretty much stage-managed," said Kuo, a New York-born rock musician and director of Baidu International Communications. "Sister cities were established, and trade delegations traveled back and forth."

Today, he says, the need for real people-to-people relations has become critical as China's rising power has become a topic of debate in US elections. While the US is experiencing a crisis of confidence, China is riding a surge of nationalism.

"Both nations have a great sense of destiny and a sense of exceptionalism," he said, and public opinion in both countries is more important that ever.

The Internet, he added, is not always an asset in the relationship.

"The Internet was supposed to make us all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya," he said, "but in reality the average citizen in each country knows just enough about the other to be dangerous." Noting that bloggers and comments on Web postings are becoming increasingly shrill, he said the problem isn't just "the usual trolls and haters you always find online. The mainstream is also growing more disparate."

Kuo recalled the events of May 1999 when US planes bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, an attack the White House said was a tragic mistake.

"At that time, there were 8 million people online in China," Kuo said, "and the outrage was immense.

"Imagine if that happened today, with 500 million Chinese online," he said. "The river of fire could overflow almost instantaneously, with people on both sides of the Pacific eager to think the worst of each other."

Such a climate of fear, other speakers said, was less likely if more people on both sides knew each other.

"Expat life is life-changing," said Chris Cooper, principal of China strategy in the US for Deloitte & Touche. "Ninety percent of the rush we all look for in daily life is just being here."

Allan Wu, host of TV's Amazing Race, told the crowd that the stereotypes that most Asians have about Americans, and Americans have about Asians, are not rooted in hostility but in a lack of interaction.

Wu, whose parents emigrated from China to the US, was raised in California and always saw himself as an American growing up. His parents urged him to appreciate his cultural roots, he said, but that didn't really click for him until he had the opportunity to come to Hong Kong as an adult.

He urged US expats in China to help American students "connect with the fastest-growing economy in the world", saying that educational exchanges were the best way not only to see differences between people but "to see how we're the same, how we can be collaborative and solve common problems".

ON THE WEB

For more about Project Pengyou, and the schedule of events in Beijing this week, log on at:

www.booeylehoo.com