On Sep. 17, 2021, the Online Donation Ceremony of Asian Week (donation by the Fang Family from San Francisco, U.S.) was held at the Shanghai Library.

Florence Fang (the owner of Asian Week and a famous leader of overseas Chinese in the U.S.), Chen Chao (Director of the Shanghai Library), Wang Donghua (Consul General of China in San Francisco), Bei Zhaojian (Deputy Director of Foreign Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government), Yu Huiwen (Co-founder of the Shanghai Charity Foundation and Founder of Mei Zi Run Xin Care for Children Special Fund), Mark Chandler (Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of San Francisco Municipal Government), Zhou Qiang (Director of International Cooperation and Exchange Office of the Shanghai Municipal Publicity Department) and more than ten other leaders and guests witnessed the donation in Shanghai and San Francisco through online video connection.

Asian Week was first published in 1979. It was founded by John Fang, an early Chinese-American journalist, with the support of his wife, Florence Fang. Since its establishment over forty years ago, Asian Week has earned the title of the Voice of Asian Americans. It was the first mainstream English weekly newspaper focusing on the life of Asian Americans, published across America. It has made great contributions to promoting the image and position of Asian Americans and achieved social recognition in recent American history. Asian Week was transferred online in 2009 and had published 1,448 print issues.

Director Chen Chao pointed out that this donation and ceremony was the latest achievement of long-term friendly exchange, cooperation and communication between Shanghai and San Francisco as sister cities. As early as in mid-1980s, led by the mayors of Shanghai and San Francisco, the Shanghai Library and San Francisco established a friendship library. At this ceremony, a total of 1,448 original Asian Week print issues were donated to the Shanghai Library, which are open to the public. The digital version of the Asian Week will also be available to the public. On behalf of the readers of the Shanghai Library, Director Chen Chao again expressed heartfelt gratitude to the Fang Family and he said that the Shanghai Library would carefully preserve and protect the newspaper and treasure its historical and cultural values. In the future, the Shanghai Library will do its best to contribute to the cultural exchange between China and the United States.