Prof. Yuan Ming was originally trained as a student of western language and literature at Peking University. Prior to her graduate work, she spent eight years in the rural areas in Northwest China. China’s reform and Open Door policy allowed her to do her graduate work in the Law Department of Peking University and then to visit these distinguished institutions abroad. She was a visiting scholar at U.C. Berkeley from 1983 to 1985 and a senior associate member at the St. Antony’s College in Oxford  University from 1989 to 1990. Since 1995, she was invited and did research at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution in  Washington D.C. She travels often and is a frequent speaker at many international gatherings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos,  the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome, etc.

Prof. Yuan Ming teaches the History of International Relations and Western Classics of International Relations at Peking  University. She is also the Director of the Institute  of International Relations and the Center for American Studies at the University. Her publication includes: A History of International Relations (1648-1989), which is one of the publications and textbooks in China; Cross Century Assignment: the International Relations Studies in China. She is also the co-editor of Sino-American Relations (1945-1955), with Harry Harding, the Golden Age of U.S.-China-Japan Relations (1972-1989), with Ezra Vogel, Tanaka Akihiko.

Prof. Yuan Ming has organized many international conferences in China, and has wide links in Asia, North America, Europe and Oceania.

Prof. Yuan Ming was a member of CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) from 1998 to 2012 and also a member of its Foreign Relations Committee. She sits on the Board of a number of institutions in China. She was also the trustee of the Asia Society in New York (1998-2004). In 2004, she joined the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations in New   York. In 2007, she joined the Board of the United Nations Foundation.

Her main publications include: An Assignment for the New Century: International Relations Studies in China, History of International Relations, American Society and Culture, and The Golden Age: U.S.-China-Japan Triangle 1972-1989.