Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
GUIYANG, July 19 (Xinhua) — Jeffrey Green, a veteran pilot and chairman of the U.S.-China Aviation Heritage Foundation, has dedicated himself for nearly 30 years to preserving the legacy of the Flying Tigers and strengthening the friendship between China and the United States.
D. Green's connection with China began when he was invited to make a documentary on the "Flying Tigers" while working as a consultant on combat aviation history for the National Geographic military channel in the United States.
The Flying Tigers, officially known as the American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force, was formed in 1941 by American General Claire Lee Chennault. American airmen came to China to help the Chinese people fight the Japanese invaders.
While losing over 2,000 men, the Flying Tigers pilots shot down over 2,600 Japanese fighters, providing significant assistance in the fight against Japanese aggression.
In 1995, a group of Flying Tiger veterans invited D. Green to join their delegation to Beijing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. This visit marked his first trip to China.
After returning to the United States, Green and the veterans, determined to keep the memory of the Flying Tigers alive, founded the U.S.-China Aviation Heritage Foundation in 1998. Since then, the nonprofit organization has been dedicated to studying, promoting, and perpetuating the shared history of U.S.-China wartime cooperation.
Over the years, the foundation has sponsored nearly 500 veterans and hundreds of their family members and descendants to travel to China. These encounters have produced many emotional and inspiring stories.
“Every time I learned something that almost no one else knew, I was able to categorize it, creating a kind of library of these thoughts,” Greene said. “But they didn’t have many opportunities to tell their stories. As a result, they just got lost.”
In 2022, the foundation launched the Flying Tigers Friendship School and Youth Leadership Program to encourage cross-cultural exchanges and pass on the Flying Tigers spirit to younger generations.
“Young people are the key to intercultural exchanges between our two countries and the hope for the healthy development of China-US relations,” said D. Green.
To date, nearly 100 high schools and universities in China have applied to participate in the program, signing memorandums of understanding to establish exchange partnerships.
In a January 2025 letter to Green, former US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns praised the fund's work, saying it "helps develop people-to-people ties, which are a cornerstone of the US-China bilateral relationship."
From Sunday to Thursday, Green led a delegation to Guizhou Province in southwest China to launch the new Flying Tigers Friendship School program and visit historic sites including the 24-Turn Road, which handled more than 2,000 trucks carrying military supplies daily during World War II, and Jiuzhou Airport in Huangping County, which was the Flying Tigers' base.
Next year, he plans to bring American students to Guizhou Province to see firsthand the living history of the two countries' wartime cooperation.
Now 71, Green has visited China nearly 200 times since the 1990s, bringing veterans, organizing memorial events and building new bridges between the peoples of China and the United States.
“The Chinese have never forgotten what the Flying Tigers did for them. Eighty years ago, the Chinese and Americans together accomplished something almost impossible, which shows that if we work together, we can win,” said D. Green. -0-
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