ChinaConnectU – 宝库山教育信息网 – is a platform for China-connected education of all kinds. The site offers educators the tools and support they need. It enables students and professional people to be ready for a global future, whether they are Americans or Europeans who want to work in China, or Chinese students who want to study at a US or Australian university.

On the Western (USA/Europe/Australia) side, ChinaConnectU offers tools, tips, and information for Chinese language and Chinese culture classes. There are hundreds of articles by China experts, discussion questions, class projects, document-based research exercises, and useful maps and timelines. ChinaConnectU also offers resources for Hanban-sponsored and other teachers from China, and for foreign-language department heads and school administrators who are introducing Chinese for the first time.

On the China side, ChinaConnectU 宝库山教育信息网 provides advice on US school and college applications and materials and teaching aids for English-language study and exam preparation. The China side will include articles by US education specialists translated into Chinese and information about Western education in Chinese for the parents of students who are going outside China for high school or college. ChinaConnectU 宝库山教育信息网 provides a bridge for Chinese students and their families.

ChinaConnectU is a division of Berkshire Publishing Group, an independent publishing company with a special focus on global issues and a long-standing involvement in China-focused education. Berkshire works with thousands of scholars, teachers, and experts around the world. Its reference and educational books are used in leading universities and schools, and have won many awards. Berkshire is proud to contribute to greater understanding and fruitful partnerships through ChinaConnectU 宝库山教育信息网.

Our Mission Statement:

ChinaConnectU brings people together as they learn about one another and share ideas and information. Language learning – Chinese and English – is an important part of ChinaConnectU, and the site also provides plenty of coverage of customs, perspectives, opinions and beliefs, and ways of life.

Since 1979, the relationship between the United States and China has been evolving and growing (though not always in forward motion, and not without tense moments). These decades were preceded by a more difficult thirty-year period, beginning in 1949 with the founding of the Communist Party–led People’s Republic of China. What lies ahead in the next thirty years? We don’t know. But we believe that Americans, Europeans, and Westerners in general—whether government leaders or citizens, teachers or students—urgently need to know more about China. They (and we) need to look beyond old-fashioned stereotypical perspectives—which have indeed wavered back and forth for the last three hundred years—and see China not as a threat but as a partner in building a better future.

For more than ten years, Berkshire Publishing Group has been helping readers to understand their world, with a special emphasis on Chinese history and culture, and the development of modern China. Berkshire is proud to be part of today’s efforts to build new global understanding and is honored to work with the Multimedia Press of the Open University of China. The two companies are cooperating on the development of China Panorama – The Visual Encyclopedia of China《中国全景——视觉中国百科全书》. This collaboration will improve global education about China by creating an unprecedented range of high-quality multimedia content that will be used in schools and colleges around the world, and in teaching institutions and classrooms such as those directed by the Confucius Institute.

Berkshire Publishing specializes in international relations, cross-cultural communication, global business and economic information, and environmental sustainability. The company is located in Great Barrington, a town in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, with affiliate offices in New York and Beijing. Our place in the mountains conferred special significance when a group of Chinese colleagues created our Chinese name: 宝库山. In pinyin, this is bǎo kù shān, and it means Treasure Mountain Library or Storeroom or, in our case, Treasure Mountain Press.

Karen Christensen 沈凯伦, CEO of Berkshire Publishing made her first trip to China in 2001 because she had wanted China to be part of her children’s world. Her son, Tom Christensen, now heads Berkshire’s Beijing office.