China's think tanks

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Lee Seong-hyon

China's think tanks

Posted : 2020-07-21 17:33

Updated : 2020-07-21 17:33

By Lee Seong-hyon

In May, Hong Kong's venerable South China Morning Post ran an exclusive story. It said, "An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation." The internal Chinese report was crafted by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's top intelligence body. CICIR was mentioned in a previous column, "Plan on NK contingency?" (May 12). Since then, some curiosity was raised regarding CICIR and Chinese think tanks in general.

CICIR was founded in 1980 as the Institute for Modern and International Relations. It was renamed to its current one in 2003. It is a research institute on international strategy and security issues covering nearly all regions of the world, including the United States, Europe, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. There are about 400 researchers (the website lists 300). By the nature of the agency, it plays an important role as a policy decision-making advisory body.

China's various policy reports go up to the General Office of CPC Central Committee (zhongyang bangongting, abbreviated as "zhongban"). The name CPC stands for Communist Party of China. Zhongban is equivalent to the Office of the President in Korea. The policy report is carefully vetted by officials at zhongban and eventually gets placed on the desk of China's top leader for reading.

It's not easy for a researcher's idea notes to reach zhongban. There is a cutthroat competition among China's think tank scholars and university academics. CICIR is known to have its separate independent channel to reach China's top leadership. One view is that CICIR is under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group (FALSG), whose head is Xi Jinping, China's top leader.

This may be confusing to some. On the one hand, CICIR is under the jurisdiction of MSS, a ministerial body belonging to the State Council, China's cabinet. But then, CICIR is also under the jurisdiction of FALSG, belonging to the CPC. In China, however, such "dual jurisdiction" is not exceptional. As Xi said, "the Party leads everything" in China. One belongs to some organization in China. But then, the organization (in fact "all organizations") belongs to the Communist Party. This means that the Party has a higher authority over the state.

The current president of CICIR is Yuan Peng. Both intelligent and a straight shooter, he was a visiting scholar to the Atlantic Council and the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was director of the Institute of American Studies at CICIR. The head of the Korean Peninsula Research Center of CICIR was Li Jun, a fluent Korean speaker. Li has recently moved to the Central Party School (zhongyang dangxiao). One important function of the Central Party School is to groom promising mid-career CPC officials. In that sense, it is similar to Harvard Kennedy School.

Unlike the U.S., there is generally no "revolving door" between think tanks and public offices in China. The two are separate career tracks and usually there is no migration between them. In recent years, however, some retired Chinese officials took positions at think tanks. But then, still, it is not as common as in the U.S. In particular, it is rare for academics and think tank scholars to assume government positions. The case of Wang Huning, for that matter, is often cited as a rare case. He was a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. Wang advised the city's mayor, whose name was Jiang Zemin. When Jiang became China's top leader, he recruited Wang. Now, Wang is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, which is China's top decision-making body.

In 2006, China's first ever think tank forum was held in Beijing. The forum announced the top 10 most influential Chinese think tanks, including CICIR. Other think tanks on the list are the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Development Research Center of the State Council, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academy of Military Science (the premier think tank for China's People's Liberation Army), China Institute of International Studies (under the foreign ministry), China Association for Science and Technology, China Institute for International Strategic Studies (it organizes the Xiangshan Forum), and Shanghai Institute of International Studies (SIIS). Most of these think tanks are quasi-official organizations, subordinate to different government departments, and have played an important role in the government's decision-making process.

Lee Seong-hyon (sunnybbsfs@gmail.com), Ph.D., is director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Sejong Institute.