The Foreign Policy Think Tanks in China: Input, Access, and Opportunity

Abstract

In foreign policy realm, Chinese think tanks are day by day getting more influential, complex, and numerous. This article is an effort to trace the nature, scope, typology, and influence of policy advice institutions in China against the time blocks of past, present, and future. After defining the factors working behind the present growth of think tanks in China, the present era is also substantiated for all non-Chinese actors as the unprecedented time of access and interaction since 1949.

Keywords:

• China
• Chinese foreign policy
• Chinese policy process
• foreign policy
• public policy
• think tanks

Notes

1. Avery Goldstein, “The Diplomatic Face of China's Grand Strategy: A Rising Power's Emerging Choice,” China Quarterly (2001): 835–864.

2. Joseph Fewsmith, “Where do Correct Ideas Come From,” in China's Leadership in the 21st Century, ed. David M. Finkelstein and Maryanne Kivelhan, eds. (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2002), 152–164.

3. David Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

4. Parameters include Mao's three world's theory, thesis of the inevitability of great power war, China self-image as a revolutionary power combating the “imperialism” of the United States, and “revisionism” of the Soviet Union.

5. Larry Wortzel and Andrew Scobell, Civil-Military Change in China Elites, Institutes, and Ideas after the 16th Party Congress, Strategic Studies Institute Compiled by Army War College Strategic Studies Institute Carlisle (Barracks, PA: Storming Media, 2004).

6. Shambaugh, China's International Relations Think Tanks, 581.

7. Yufan Hao and Lin Su, eds., China's Foreign Policy Making: Societal Force and Chinese American Policy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005).

8. Including the China Institute of International Relations (f. 1956) (now the Institute of International Relations) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Afro-Asia Research Institute created in 1961 under the CCP International Liaison Department, and the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations established in 1965 and linked with the State Council and the Ministry of State Security.

9. Merle Goldman, China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent (Cambridge, MA and London, UK: Harvard University Press, 1981), 233.

10. Such as CICIR under the Ministry of State Security and the China Institute of International Studies (CHS, formerly the China Institute of International Relations). The new institutes on international studies were also established, including the Development Research Centre (in 1981) under the State Council, the China Centre for International Studies (in 1982 and merged with the CIIS in 1998), and the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation (the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation from 1997 onwards), under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (Ministry of Commerce from 2003 onwards). A semi-private think tank, the China Institute for International Strategic Studies was also founded in 1979 and headed by the former PLA Deputy-Chief of the General Staff Wu Xiuquan. In December 1984, the Centre for Peace and Development Studies was established in Beijing; it was affiliated with the China Association for International Friendly Contact but also had ties with the General Political Department of People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of State Security.

11. The institutes on the Soviet Union and Eastern European (now on East European, Russian, and Central Asian) Studies, Latin-American Studies, and Middle East studies (became a part of the Institute on West Asia and African Studies since 1978) were established. They were originally attached to the CCP's International Liaison Department. There were five newly established institutes that included the institutes on World Economics and Politics, American Studies, Japanese Studies, West European Studies, and Asia-Pacific Studies.

12. Such as, Departments of International Politics resumed at Peking University, the People's University in Beijing, and Fudan University in Shanghai, and IR research institutes such as the Institute of International Relations, the Centre for American Studies at Peking and Fudan Universities, and the Centre for European Studies at the People's University were established in the mid-1980s. However, prior to the early 1990s, these university departments and institutes focused mainly on academic research and education, with only a marginal role in China's foreign policy process.

13. Stephanie Balme, “The Judicialisation of Politics and the Politicisation of the Judiciary in China (1978–2005),” Global Jurist Frontiers 5, no. 1 (2005): Article 1, http://www.bepress.com/gj/frontiers/vol5/iss1/art1 (accessed March 3, 2009).

14. Evan S. Medeiros, “Agents of Influence: Assessing the Role of Chinese Foreign Policy Research Organizations after The 16th Party Congress,” in Civil-Military Change in China: Elites, Institutes, and Ideas After the 16th Party Congress, ed. Andrew Scobell and Larry Wortzel, eds. (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 279–308.

15. Donald E Abelson, Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes, 2002. James McGann & R. Weaver, Think Tanks and Civil Societies: Catalysts for Ideas and Action (Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000) and (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002).

16. Abelson, Do Think Tanks Matter?

17. Ibid.

18. JMcGann and Weaver, Think Tanks and Civil Societies.

19. Yan'an was the war base of the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1936 to 1947.

20. Murray S. Tanner, “Changing Windows on a Changing China: The Evolving ‘Think Tank’ System and the Case of the Public Security Sector,” The China Quarterly 171 (2002), 559–74.

21. Established in 1956, the institute consists of senior diplomats, pre-eminent experts, and leading area-study specialists in foreign affairs, who conduct research on international issues and foreign relations. The CIIS focuses on important strategic issues so that comprehensive and innovative conclusions and solutions can be found. The institute has established a worldwide exchange network of scholars, holds regular meetings with foreign institutions, and sends scholars to participate in international conventions. In order to review the latest international developments, the CIIS also hosts a large conference at the end of each year.

22. It irregularly began its publication from early 1951 but has become one of the bestselling foreign policy journals in China. Its subscription reached nearly 10,000 copies per issue by the 1990s.

23. Michael Pillsbury, China Debates The Future Security Environment (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2000), http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/pills2/index.html (accessed March 21, 2008).

24. David Shambaugh, “China's International Relations Think Tanks: Evolving Structure and Process,” The China Quarterly 171, Sept. (2002), 575–59.

25. Lu Ning, The Dynamics of Foreign-Policy Decision-making in China (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997).

26. Shambaugh, “China's International Relations Think Tanks,” 584–85.

27. Ibid.

28. Rex Li, A Rising China and Security in East Asia: Identity Construction and Security Discourse (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2009), 42.

29. Zhu Xufeng, “China's Think Tanks: Roles and Characteristics,” EAI Background Brief No. 306, October 2006, http://www.eai.nus.edu.sg/BB306.pdf (accessed March 29, 2008).

30. It became independent in May 1977 and consists of 32 research institutions and three research centers that carry out research activities covering as many as 300 disciplines of different grades; among them, 120 are key disciplines. Its basic mission is to promote research and to undertake and fulfill key state-research projects in the light of China's national conditions, economic and social development strategies, and trends; its task also includes organizing academic exchange between the Academy and foreign countries.

31. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, http://english.gov.cn/2005-12/02/content_116009.htm (accessed May 21, 2008).

32. Nina P. Halpern, “Information Flows and Policy Coordination in the Chinese Bureaucracy,” in Bureaucracy, Politics and Decision-Making in Post-Mao China, ed. Kenneth G. Lieberthal and David Lampton (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 192.

33. Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner, “Regulating Intellectual Life in China: The Case of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,” The China Quarterly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 83–99.

34. Merle Goldman, “Politically-Engaged Intellectuals in the Ding-Jiang Era in,” China in the Era of Deng Xiaoping (M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 296.

35. www.cciee.org.cn (accessed July 6, 2009).

36. http://www.chinaview.cn (July 2, 2009).

37. Normally, at the end of each year, the Government officials summon these kinds of forums, inviting prominent scholars from various academic think tanks for general discussion on China's foreign policy issues. Hence, these civilian or academic think tanks are much less influential and play very little role in the “agenda-setting” in China's foreign policy.

38. Steven F. Jackson, “Lessons From a Neighbour: China's Japan- Watching Community” in China and Japan: History, Trends, and Prospects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 155–176, edited by Christopher Howe.

39. “CFAU Celebrates 50th Anniversary” [in Chinese], http://www.edu.cn/zong_he_news_465/20060323/t20060323_139592.shtml (accessed April 14, 2008).

40. The primary task of the institute has been the teaching of international studies; international business and law, as well as foreign languages. However, the specialists at the CFAU in general have a better opportunity to access primary documents on China's foreign policies. They are often asked by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to submit policy recommendations regarding specific issues. China Foreign Affairs University has always been exalted and given special attention from government leaders ever since its establishment. Premier Zhou Enlai, Vice Premier Chen Yi, Vice Premier Qian Qichen, and the successive foreign ministers have all visited the university and given their valuable instructions.

41. China Foreign Affairs University, http://www.cfau.edu.cn/cfauEN/index.html (accessed April 14, 2008).

42. This has been demonstrated by the growth in the frequency with which they are consulted by high-ranking leaders before foreign visits, and by the fact that university scholars have begun to conduct more joint-projects with the government think tanks. Some of them were even invited to join the visits made by high-ranking leadership. This new development is of special significance for the university think tanks, as it has not only given them better access to research materials but has also enhanced opportunities for their ideas to reach the top leaders.

43. Xuanli Liao, Chinese Foreign Policy Think Tanks and China's Policy Towards Japan, (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2006), 90–91.

44. For instance, Li Hongmei in the People's Daily Online edition, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90002/96417/6640731.html (accessed July 5, 2009). wrote, “last July, when the oil prices hit a record high of US$147 a barrel, some think tanks in China said it would reach US$200 soon. Five months later, these experts were put to shame when prices plunged to US$35 a barrel.” Arguing that,“of all the 2,000 research institutes known as think tanks across the nation, only 74 has reached the international criteria and gained acknowledgement,” he declared that the output of Chinese think tanks “is far from satisfactory in both its professional competence and international clout.”

45. On October 23, 2008, the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings hosted a discussion on the role Chinese think tanks play in addressing China's internal and external issues, the parallel between these institutions and their American counterparts, and the political limitations they face today. Panelists also examined the interactions between the Chinese leadership and the country's prominent think tanks, as well as their potential impact on China's future.