After breaking ground in 1984, the HNC officially opened in 1986,[3] and has operated continuously since, even during tumultuous periods like the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and the 2003 SARS crisis.

In fall 2020, students were offered the option of relocating to The Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe campus in Bologna, Italy, for an in-person community while continuing to take HNC virtual courses.

The mission of the Hopkins–Nanjing Center is "to develop and train professionals to provide leadership in managing successful bilateral and multilateral relationships involving China and the West in an increasingly complex international environment.

Students benefit from modern facilities, such as the only uncensored, open-stacks library in China, offering both English and Chinese collections totaling 120,000 volumes.

For example, the Chinese administration previously blocked American students from starting an academic journal, a common fixture of top ranked graduate programs.

Graduate-level courses on topics such as Chinese studies, energy, economics, and law help students advance their research and language skills while gaining the multidisciplinary background needed in today's global workforce.

Thesis topics reflect diverse course offerings and have covered areas ranging from women's rights in China to Chinese soft power.

The program's interdisciplinary coursework emphasizes international economics, geopolitics, data analysis, quantitative methods, decision-making, and policy studies.