Having obtained his doctorate at Yale as one of the earliest pupils of lauded historian Jonathan Spence, Mr. Oxnam has contributed to cross-cultural understanding in myriad ways, including as a tenured professor of Japanese and Chinese History at Trinity College, founder of the China Council at the Asia Society, and later, as president of the Asia Society.

Mr. Oxnam has been frequently consulted by political leaders in matters related to political unrest in China in the late 1980s. He accompanied former U.S. President George H. W. Bush as an on-the-ground adviser on a goodwill trip to China in the late 1990s. He has also led financial-cultural tours of China for Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet and also spent time on the Board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.