James Zimmerman

I first want to thank Michael Hart and his team for doing an extraordinary job in running the organization, especially during a challenging time on various fronts. I applaud their efforts.

As background, I was elected by the membership and served as chairman of AmCham-China for four terms (2007, 2008, 2015, 2016), and as a vice chairman for two terms (2005, 2006). I was privileged to be chairman of the organization during better days when the U.S.-China relationship was built on trust, goodwill, and cooperation. Fast forward to 2025 and one might ask why I would run for the BOG once again. Here’s why:

After three decades of living and working in China I am very much concerned about the future of the organization and believe the relevance of AmCham-China — and the American business community in general — is at stake in the current bilateral environment. Many of our member companies invested significantly in the market because they were told that to be relevant in the decades ahead, they needed to engage and invest in China. Many of us were told by successive Administrations — Republican and Democrat alike — that the role of the American business community as citizen-ambassadors was about more than just profits, but to contribute to peace and stability in the East Asia region.

Now, our livelihoods and everything we have worked for is indeed at stake. For ten years the U.S. Government has followed a policy of de-coupling, de-risking, and excessive tariffs and sanctions that have been wholly ineffective and damaging to the interests of American companies, workers, consumers, and farmers. The threats and cajoling over the past decade under both Trump and Biden have, simply put, borne no fruit and has driven both sides to overreach and overreact to every slight and triviality as a provocation and national security threat. Today, the wisdom of our investments has been questioned, our employees and markets in China are at risk, our farmers aren’t selling their crops, and our universities are unable to welcome Chinese students to their classrooms. We are now in a very sad state of affairs — an endless war of antagonistic narratives.

AmCham and its members simply can’t afford to be voiceless bystanders as our livelihoods are at stake. I believe that we, as an organization representing billions of dollars in investments, need to diplomatically push back on both the U.S. and China sides, neither appears to have an effective strategy on how to end the current impasse — which is not just admitted to be a trade war but a march forward to a confrontation none of us desires. AmCham companies have a good story to tell, which must be told over and over again to reinforce the understanding that American business in China is valuable to the economic and strategic interests of the United States and the global economy in general.

My view is that AmCham’s task ahead is to strive, and in a much more forceful manner, to encourage the governments of the first and second largest economies in the world to return to an environment based upon trust where the people on both sides of the Pacific can benefit from a constructive trade and investment relationship. We can’t do that without a reset in the relationship, and a reset is what I plan to endeavor for if elected to the Board of Governors.