China’s International Relations Think Tanks-Evolving Structu

岸上的猪

Source: The China Quarterly, 2002

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades China’s international relations (IR) think tanks
have come to play increasingly important roles in China’s foreign policy making and
intelligence analysis, as well as serving as an increasingly important liaison to
officials and specialists in foreign countries. During this period China’s IR think tanks
have expanded in quantity as well as improving the quality of personnel and
analytical product. Publications by, and discussions with, these think tanks often offer
important indications of broader policy debates and competition among institutes and
their staff. This article surveys the current organization and state of research in
China’s IR think tanks, offers historical perspectives on the evolution of this
community, and provides current information of relevance to those who interact with
these institutions and read their publications.


In 1987 I published a survey of China’s international relations (IR)
institutes (think tanks) in this journal, based on my interaction with these
institutes during 1983–85.1 At that time many of these analytical organs
were just being established or were rebuilding after being closed during
the Cultural Revolution. Some things have changed in the interim, while
others have not.

The community of IR institutes/think tanks has certainly expanded
over time – as China increasingly interacts with the outside world, as
Chinese leaders have a greater need for better intelligence and knowledge
about world affairs, as the academic discipline of international relations
has developed,2 and as increased financial resources have been made
available (including funding from the private sector in China and from
American philanthropic foundations). Ministerial-level officials also increasingly
turn to their affiliated think tanks for policy research and
advice. As Bonnie Glaser and Philip Saunders’ contribution to this
symposium elucidates, the “policy influence” of these think tanks is
difficult to assess and the indicators are difficult to measure, but undoubtedly
the decision-making system has become more consultative over


1. David Shambaugh, “China’s national security research bureaucracy,” The China
Quarterly, No. 110 (June 1987), pp. 276–304.
2. In the growing study of the study of IR in China see Yuan Ming (ed.), Kua shiji de
tiaozhan: Zhongguo guoji guanxi xueke de fazhan (The Trans-Century Challenge: China’s
International Relations Scholarship and Development) (Chongqing: Chongqing renmin
chubanshe, 1993); Gerald Chan, “International studies in China: origins and development,”
Issues and Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2 (February 1997), pp. 40–64; Gerald Chan, “Toward an
international relations theory with Chinese characteristics?” Issues and Studies, Vol. 34, No.
6 (June 1998), pp. 1–28; Gerald Chan, Chinese Perspectives on International Relations: A
Framework for Analysis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); and Ren Xiao, The
International Relations Theoretical Discourse in China: A Preliminary Analysis (Washington,
DC: George Washington University Sigur Center for Asian Studies Asia Paper No. 9,
2000). For an earlier assessment see David Shambaugh and Wang Jisi, “Research and training
in international studies in the People’s Republic of China,” PS, Vol. 17 No. 4 (Fall 1984),
pp. 6–14.

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time, with an increased role played by the think tank specialists. The
policy influence of some think tanks has been reduced over time (such as
the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (Zhongguo
xiandai guoji guanxi yanjiusuo) (CICIR)) while in some it has grown,
(such as the China Institute of International Studies (Zhongguo guoji wenti
yanjiusuo) (CIIS)), in others it is episodic depending on external events
(such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) area institutes),
in others it remains marginal (such as the Foundation for International
Strategic Studies (Guoji zhanlu¨e yanjiu jijinhui) (FISS)), and still others
which were formerly influential have ceased to exist altogether (State
Council International Studies Research Centre). While some think tanks
do possess policy influence, it is important to note that not all are
policy-relevant, nor do they all aspire to be so. Many of those in the CASS
system, for example, are more concerned with pure scholarship: building
and disseminating knowledge and information about foreign countries to
other similar organizations and the learned public. Their research agendas
are not, on the whole, set or driven by contemporary policy concerns.

In addition to providing analyses for government officials, many think
tank personnel simultaneously provide channels for information/intelligence
collection and policy testing/dissemination for the Chinese government.
They often meet foreign specialists and officials and provide a
steady stream of information and intelligence feedback into the system.
They also occasionally carry specific messages to foreign officials, specialists
or public audiences (some of which cannot be so expressed in
official channels), and try to use foreign specialists with whom they are
familiar to try and influence the policies of their governments and publics
(giving new meaning to the old stratagem of “using barbarians to control
barbarians”). As the Chinese government has increasingly participated in
so-called “Track II” policy dialogues, so too has it better understood the
utility of such venues for floating policy ideas and possible initiatives, and
to gauge the potential reaction of foreigners.

Historical Perspectives: Escaping the Soviet Shadow

The history of international relations research institutes/think tanks in
the foreign policy process is an important context in which to judge their
roles and influence today. Many of China’s IR institutes are the stepchild
of the imported Soviet system, although their development since the 1980s
has been spurred by an increased appreciation of the role played by think
tanks in the United States and other nations. Originally, they were few and
entirely embedded in the institutional structure of the ministries and
commissions of the State Council or the departments of the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Their structure and roles
paralleled those of the Soviet Institute of International Relations and
World Economy and other IR institutes in the Soviet system.3

3. See William Zimmerman, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations, 1956–1967
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969; and Richard Remnick (ed.), Social Scientists
and Policy Making in the USSR (New York: Praeger Press, 1977).

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The first initiative to build expertise on international affairs outside the
Foreign Ministry and Investigation Department of the Chinese Communist
Party came in the wake of events in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet
Union in 1956. Chairman Mao was shocked at the events in Budapest and
Warsaw (to say nothing of Khruschev’s “secret speech”), which his own
advisors had failed to predict, and so ordered Premier Zhou Enlai to
establish the Institute of International Relations (Guoji guanxi yanjiusuo)
under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (subsequently renamed the China
Institute of International Studies). In the same year, the State Planning
Commission was instructed to establish a Bureau of World Economics
(Shijie jingji ju) to track developments in the capitalist world, and the
Chinese Academy of Sciences Philosophy and Social Science Department
established an economics research institute under which existed a international
economics section (by 1958 this included a world politics
research section as well).4 As the Sino-Soviet rift deepened in 1960, the
Institute of International Relations was instrumental in co-ordinating the
drafting process of the “Nine Letters” that inaugurated the polemics
between the two countries.

As Chinese diplomacy became more oriented to competing with
Moscow in the developing world, a new Afro-Asia Research Institute was
established in 1961 under the auspices of the CCP International Liaison
Department (Zhong lian bu) (ILD), which was joined in 1963 by the
establishment of a Soviet-East Europe Institute and a Latin America
Institute.5 These joined the already extant international relations research
section of the ILD, which was later elevated to full institute status (this
entity is the forerunner of the CICIR). In the same year, the Foreign
Ministry established a separate India Research Institute and International
Law Institute.6 Also in 1963 the Academy of Sciences elevated the Social
Science Department to Division level and established a World Economics
Institute, under which there was a World Politics Research Section. In
1964, after a tour of Africa, during which he was impressed by the
diplomats he met, Zhou Enlai ordered the establishment of several
colleges and university departments to focus on international affairs. The
College of Foreign Affairs (Waijiao xueyuan) and First Foreign Languages
Institute (Yi wai) were established to train staff for the Foreign
Ministry and Xinhua News Agency, the College of International Affairs
(Guoji guanxi xueyuan) was established to train intelligence personnel for
the Investigation Department and (undercover) at Xinhua News Agency,
and international politics departments were established at Peking University,
Fudan University and People’s University. There was a curricular
division of labour established between these latter three: Beida (developing
world), Fudan (developed world), Renda (socialist world).

4. Li Zong et al., “Xin Zhongguo guoji wenti yanjiu 50 nian” (“New China’s international
studies research at 50”), in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Xin Zhongguo shehui
kexue 50 nian (New China’s Social Sciences at 50) (Beijing: China Social Science Press,
2000), p. 611.
5. Ibid. p. 612.
6. Ibid.

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This was essentially the institutional landscape prior to the Cultural
Revolution (1966–76). During this chaotic time, all IR institutes and
universities were closed, the Foreign Ministry essentially ceased to
function, and personnel were sent to May 7th cadre schools in the
countryside. Apparently the only institute that continued to function
partially was CICIR (elevated to institute status in 1965), which continued
as the current intelligence agency of the senior leadership and Central
Committee (although it is unclear if it remained bureaucratically under
the Investigation Department and/or the ILD). During these years the
CICIR staggered the sending of staff to its May 7th cadre school, so that
a core group continued to function at this delicate time in China’s
national security, and by 1969 – in the wake of the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia and the Ussuri Crisis – it had been restored in its entirety.
CICIR staff apparently played an important role in helping the top
leadership understand the Nixon Doctrine and America’s reorientation of
policy towards China, and the dangers of the Soviet threat of invasion,
and prepare for Kissinger’s and Nixon’s visits to China.7

The Foreign Ministry’s Institute of International Relations was
officially reopened in 1973 and was renamed the China Institute of
International Studies, so as not to be confused with the CICIR. In fact, the
institute remained dormant until 1978 as most of its staff remained in the
countryside.

The year 1977 was critical in the rehabilitation, reorganization and new
development of IR institutes. This was when CASS was founded, as the
successor to the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the
Academy of Sciences. More or less since its inception, CASS has had a
number of regional research institutes (diqu yanjiusuo) as well as the
Institute of World Economics and Politics.

The Soviet influence on China’s IR institutes was not simply organizational,
whereby institutes were established within ministerial hierarchies
(whether in the state or party apparat) and strictly served their ministerial
masters; it was also analytical. Until the 1990s Chinese IR analysts still
subscribed largely to categories of analysis and paradigms they had
learned and adapted from the Soviet Union.8 The “Sovietization” of
Chinese international relations research and discourse began to change
appreciably only in the early to mid-1980s, with a move away from the
ideological dictates of Marxism-Leninism in favour of more empirical,
neutral and descriptive analysis. This was particularly the case in the new
study of the United States,9 Japan10 and the former Soviet Union.11

7. Ibid. p. 626.
8. See my “The Soviet impact on the Chinese worldview,” The Australian Journal of
Chinese Affairs (January 1992).
9. See my Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972–1990 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990); “China’s America watchers,” Problems of Communism
(May-August 1988), pp. 71–94.
10. See Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989).
11. See Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Soviet watchers in the 1980s: a new era of scholarship,”
World Politics (July 1985), pp. 435–74; Rozman, The Chinese Debate About Soviet Socialism,
1978–1985 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

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Nevertheless analysis still often had to support policy, rather than vice
versa. In more than one instance, IR analysis had to justify policy
initiatives that had been taken by the Chinese government on pragmatic
rather then ideological grounds, such as in the extended polemic on
imperialism which spanned much of the decade of the 1980s.12 By the
1990s, however, in place of such Marxist-Leninist ideological analysis,
the trend towards “thick description” has deepened, and – as Bonnie
Glaser and Phillip Saunders’ contribution to this symposium suggests – it
has become more variegated, sophisticated and occasionally theoretical.
There is a much greater awareness of the interaction of domestic and
international systemic variables on foreign nations’ foreign relations, a
much more thorough understanding of international organizations (ranging
from the World Bank to the World Trade Organization), an increased
appreciation of political economy and globalization (quanqiuhua), and a
considerably deeper understanding of functional issues in world politics
(ranging from the environment to arms control).13 This is not to suggest
that Chinese international relations analysts and think tank experts do not
still infuse their analyses with a strong dose of doctrinaire orthodoxy, as
they still do, but it no longer derives from classic Marxism-Leninism.
Rather, core concepts such as “multipolarism” and the critique of
“hegemony” – both of which underpin and infuse most analyses – derive
from more indigenous Chinese theories and concepts. In academic IR
circles there is obsessive search to develop “IR theory with Chinese
characteristics.”14

The Institutional Universe of Civilian International Relations Think
Tanks

The universe of China’s IR think tanks must be understood in its
bureaucratic context. First, it is important to understand that there is no
such thing as an “independent” IR think tank in China, although many
profess such independence. All (with the possible exception of the China
Society for Strategy and Management) operate within administrative
hierarchies under either a State Council ministry, a Central Committee
department or one of the general departments of the People’s Liberation
Army (PLA). A few have more than one line of institutional authority.
Such is the case, for example, with CICIR (under the Central Committee

12. See my Beautiful Imperialist, ch. 2.
13. See the contributions in David M. Lampton (ed.), The Making of China’s Foreign and
Security Policy in the Reform Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); and Elizabeth
Economy and Michel Oksenberg (eds.), China Joins the World: Progress & Prospects (New
York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999).
14. The former chairman of the College of International Relations at Peking University,
Liang Shoude, has been at the forefront of this effort. See, for example, Liang’s “Constructing
an international relations theory with Chinese characteristics,” Political Science, Vol. 49, No.
1 (January 1997), pp. 23–39; “Lun guoji zhengzhixue de Zhongguo tese” (“On the study of
international politics with Chinese characteristics”), Guoji zhengzhi yanjiu (Research on
International Politics) (January 1994), pp. 15–21; “Guoji zhengzhixue zai Zhongguo: zaitan
guoji guanxi lilun de Zhongguo tese” (“The study of international politics in China: another
discussion of international relations theory with Chinese characteristics”), Guoji zhengzhi
yanjiu (January 1997), pp. 1–9.

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Foreign Affairs Office and the State Council Ministry of State Security);
the Institute of Taiwan Studies (under CASS, the State Council Taiwan
Affairs Office, the Central Committee Leading Group on Taiwan Affairs
and the Ministry of State Security); and the Centre for Peace and
Development Studies (Heping yu fazhan yanjiusuo) (CPDS) (under the
PLA General Political Department and Ministry of State Security). But
these are the exceptions to the rule that Chinese think tanks/research
institutes remain creatures of the Soviet system, all nested firmly within
vertically hierarchical bureaucratic systems (xitong).

This fact is fundamental to understanding the severe bureaucratic
“stovepiping” that permeates the system. This is a system that structurally
enforces extreme compartmentalization and redundancy of research and
analysis, and impedes horizontal communication. Over the last decade or
so, horizontal communication has increasingly taken place, as a result of
analysts from different institutions meeting abroad or at international
conferences, but this contact remains informal and personal rather than
institutionalized. Thus, in effect, each main ministry involved in foreign
affairs has its own think tank (CASS has nine), and many also have some
solely devoted to exchange of personnel with foreign countries (such as
the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (Zhongguo renmin
waijiao xuehui) (CPIFA) and the China Association for International
Friendly Contact (Zhongguo guoji youhao lianhe hui) (CAIFC)). Several
others answer to the top-level Central Committee Foreign Affairs Office,
a relatively small (around 25 professional staff) organ that staffs the
Central Committee’s Foreign Affairs Leading Group (FALG) and co-ordinates
all the document and intelligence flow for the Politburo and
principal civilian leadership (there is a similar organ under the Second
Department of the General Staff Department of the PLA for the military
leadership). It also co-ordinates meetings of the FALG or other sets of top
leaders concerned with foreign policy issues.

The FALG itself is an organ that dates back more than 40 years, and
is the senior most deliberative body of the Chinese leadership and foreign
policy/national security establishment. It was founded on 6 March 1958
as a permanent Leading Group of the Central Committee (simultaneously
the Foreign Affairs Office was established as its staff office).15 Originally,
the FALG was composed of second-echelon leaders (such as Chen Yi, Li
Kenong, Wang Jiaxiang and Zhang Wentian), but over time it expanded
and elevated its membership. Since 1997 it has been chaired by Jiang
Zemin. The FALG must be thought of as simultaneously a policy-deliberative
body, a policy-making organ and particularly a policy co-ordination
institution. It is with regard to this last function that it is important for IR
think tanks, insofar as it is the principal consumer of their analytical
product, and co-ordinates and tasks studies to be done, occasionally
arranging for individuals to brief senior leaders and FALG meetings.

15. Wang Jingsong, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhengfu yu zhengzhi (Government and
Politics of the People’s Republic of China) (Beijing: CCP Central Party School Press, 1995),
pp. 384–85.

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Much of this logistical work is done by the Foreign Affairs office, but the
FALG is the beneficiary.

Overall, Chinese IR think tanks have evolved in their functions,
responsibilities and influence. Cumulatively, they have gained in importance
(although there are exceptions to this generalization) and today they
must be considered important actors in the foreign policy making process
in the PRC. Their influence varies by issue area and the relative competence
of the primary bureaucracies involved, and also as a result of the
relative personal influence and connections (guanxi) of institute directors
or occasionally individual staff members, as these connections often
enable a think tank to circumvent normal bureaucratic channels and
processes. Think tank influence has certainly grown commensurate with
China’s involvement in global affairs: ministries, localities, and even
private companies and educational institutions have needed information
on foreign countries and international affairs, and this demand has created
important new revenue streams for think tanks, as their government
“customers” have had fewer financial resources to provide.

The published journals (open and neibu) of IR think tanks provide very
important insights into policy debates that are percolating inside bureaucracies,
thus offering important “early warning indicators” of policies to
come. One recent indication of this was the official publication of the
2000 China Defence White Paper,16 which contained what many analysts
considered to be a surprisingly harsh critique of the United States – but,
in fact, the specifics of this critique had been previewed in numerous
journals published by civilian and military IR think tanks over the
previous year. The think tanks should thus not be dismissed as purveyors
of propaganda or disseminators of disinformation. They are serious
professional research institutions, both for current intelligence and for
scholarly purposes.

The following survey does not seek to be comprehensive and cannot do
justice to the roles, personnel or influence of various IR think tanks. But
it does capture, as accurately as possible, both the totality of civilian IR
think tanks and their internal organization (current as of late 2001).17

China Institute of Contemporary International Relations

In its organizational origins, CICIR is probably the oldest of China’s
IR think tanks.18 Its roots are traceable to the Chinese Communists’
intelligence operations during the Sino-Japanese War and the collection
effort against the US Dixie Mission and Soviet Comintern presence in

16. Information Office of the State Council, China’s National Defense in 2000 (Beijing:
Xinhua News Agency, 2000).
17. This assessment is drawn from a number of sources, including my extensive personal
interactions with these institutions. In addition a unprecedented cataloguing of these institutes
has been published in Yang Jiemian, Hou lengzhan shiqi de Zong-Mei guanxi (China–US
Relations in the Post-Cold War Era) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2000), pp.
134–142.
18. For a fuller assessment of CICIR’s history, see my “China’s national security research
bureaucracy.”

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Yan’an.19 Since its inception as an institute in 1965, CICIR has served the
senior-most Chinese Communist leadership, and has always been bureaucratically
subordinate to the FALG. In 1980 CICIR was designated an
“open” (gongkai) unit authorized to have contact with foreigners,20 so as
better to facilitate its intelligence collection. Until 1982 the FALG was
subordinate to the Central Committee, but then it was transferred (along
with the Foreign Affairs Office) to the State Council. At the same time
CICIR was administratively and fiscally put under the authority of the
newly-created Ministry of State Security. This structure lasted until 1999,
when both the Foreign Affairs Office and CICIR were transferred back
under Central Committee auspices (see Figure 1). Thus, in 1999, the
uppermost levels of PRC foreign policy decision-making undid a bureaucratic
change of 1982 and reverted to the earlier system.21

For CICIR, this meant a decline in bureaucratic influence, although, in

19. For a state-of-the art assessment of the CCP’s pre-1949 intelligence operations see
Murray Scot Tanner’s forthcoming monograph Who Wields the Knife? A Historical-Institutional
Analysis of Chinese Communist Police and Intelligence Organs, 1927–1950.
20. Yang Jiemian, China–US Relations, p. 135.
21. One of the great unexplained reforms of the early Deng era was the total reorganization
of the intelligence community, and the establishment of the Ministry of State Security, in 1982.

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fact, its influence began to wane in the mid-1990s. The reasons for this
are not entirely clear, but would seem related to at least two factors: the
retirements or deaths of senior analytical staff without finding replacements
of sufficient analytical quality; and the increased dominance of the
Foreign Ministry in foreign policy decision-making. CICIR has yet to
recover fully from its diminished role.

CICIR’s comparative advantages remain its exclusive focus on current
intelligence and its ability to manufacture instant analyses, its large staff
(more than 400 including 150 “senior fellows”),22 its multiple sources of
information/intelligence, and its bureaucratic proximity to the Foreign
Affairs Office, FALG, Ministry of State Security and senior leadership.
These are not insignificant advantages. Many of CICIR’s writings are
related to prospective visits for foreign leaders or Chinese leaders’ trips
abroad: biographies of interlocutors, the current internal political situation
of the interlocutor’s nation, recent foreign policy interactions of interlocutors,
and compilations of pronouncements concerning China/Taiwan by
interlocutors.

To regain its status as China’s leading IR think tank, CICIR needs new
infrastructure (indeed a new office building is under construction), new
personnel,23 better staff morale, a high-level patron (which it hasn’t had
since Li Peng), and truly cosmopolitan senior management. Its current
leadership all share lengthy and shadowy careers in the intelligence
service.24 The institution still suffers from its excessive connection to
Soviet-style intelligence and a major identity crisis as to whether it should
be an intelligence agency, a more independent think tank or a combination
of the two. As long as the Ministry of State Security pays most of
the bills and the FALG is CICIR’s principal customer, this ensures the
future of the institution as a Soviet-style intelligence organ.
CICIR uses a number of internal (neibu) and classified (baomi) channels
to reach government audiences, and it publishes the influential
journal, Xiandai guoji guanxi. It also has an association with Factual
Publishers (Shi shi chubanshe) for book publishing.

China Institute of International Studies

As CICIR has been in relative eclipse in recent years, CIIS has seen its
star rise. Although the oldest of all Chinese IR think tanks, the CIIS has
never – until recently – been that important in terms of foreign policy
influence. It is the Foreign Ministry’s think tank (Figure 2), but historically
has never been taken very seriously by the Foreign Ministry or
Foreign Minister – under the bureaucratic assumption that everything that
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was worth knowing was already known “in-house.” This has changed in
the last five years. Clearly the appointment of former Ambassador Yang

22. Yang Jiemian, China–US Relations.
23. Some of the best younger and middle-aged analysts, such as Yan Xuetong and Chu
Shulong, have left CICIR – and there are many others who are desperately trying to leave.
24. The current President of CICIR is Lu Zhongwei, and there are three Vice-Presidents:
Zhong Buwen, Tao Jian and Li Huiying.

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Chengxu as President, and the external entrepreneurial acumen as well as
internal policy conformity he has demonstrated, made a major difference.
(In March 2002 Ambassador Yang retired and was replaced by Song
Minjiang, a former ambassador to the European Union.) New financial
resources were also found in the Foreign Ministry and spent on CIIS; the
Ford Foundation has also been a significant help. Disillusion in the
Foreign Ministry (and perhaps among senior leaders) about CICIR may
also have contributed to the recent relative rise of CIIS.

The CIIS staff is a mixture of junior and middle-aged personnel, and
their analytical quality and training is quite high (including many who
possess PhDs from American universities). The absorption of the best
staff from the State Council’s former Centre for International Studies
(Guoji wenti yanjiu zhongxin), which was merged into CIIS in 1998, has
helped to strengthen analytical expertise at the institute, although CIIS
has also been astute at recruiting new graduates from Peking University’s
College of International Affairs and other universities, and sending them
abroad for training.25 The institute claims to be “focused primarily on
medium and long-term issues of strategic importance,”26 as opposed to

25. For example, CIIS has exchange relationships with the School of International Studies
at Denver University and the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington
University.
26. CIIS brochure, 2000.

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the current and short-term nature of much of CICIR’s analysis. Their staff
is also constantly infused by rotational assignments from the ministry.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs increasingly utilizes their expertise, and
has so designated CIIS as the key “Track II” organ to carry out such
exchanges for China. On an international level, CIIS has now emerged as
the full counterpart to the Royal Institute of International Affairs
(Chatham House), the Japan Institute for International Affairs or comparable
research institutes attached to foreign ministries around the world.
CIIS publishes Guoji wenti yanjiu, as well as a number of internal
publications.

Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs

CPIFA is an arm of the Foreign Ministry and is not a think tank per
se (Figure 3). It has a long history dating to December 1949 and is the
Chinese government’s principal institution devoted to “people-to-people
diplomacy.” During its first two decades CPIFA performed a valuable
channel for informal exchanges with elites from nations with which the
PRC did not have formal diplomatic relations. In the last two decades,
though, its focus has been more on hosting former politicians and
ex-diplomats. It is the principal institutional channel through which
former heads of state, officials, and ambassadors visit China after leaving
office. It is currently headed by former ambassador Mei Zhaorong. The
institute also publishes the informative Foreign Affairs Journal (in
English).

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China Association for International Friendly Contact

The CAIFC is something of a military counterpart to the CPIFA,
although it has connections to the civilian foreign affairs establishment as
well (Figure 4). This duality was evidenced in the fact that General Wang
Zhen was its first honorary president while former Foreign Minister
Huang Hua was its first president. On the military side, it appears that
CAIFC is linked to the Intelligence Bureau of the Liaison Department of
the PLA’s General Political Department. On the civilian side, it appears
to have ties to both the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Its offices today are in a compound in north Beijing
shared by other PLA units. CAIFC was founded in 1984, and is involved
in bringing both retired civilian and military personages to China
(although it was not as active in the 1990s as it was in the 1980s). One
of its major responsibilities is to administer the Centre for Peace and
Development Studies (see below).

Centre for Peace and Development Studies

The CPDS was also established in December 1984, assumed its current
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name in 1989, and is described as “affiliated with” the CAIFC.27 It too
has ties to the PLA’s General Political Department as well as the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of State Security. As Figure 5 illustrates,
CPDS has seven regional research sections and a staff of 20 full-time
researchers (plus numerous affiliated research fellows). Its publications
indicate that CPDS receives between five and ten international visitors
per month.28

Perhaps the most important activity of the institute is its publication
Heping yu fazhan (Peace and Development). This quarterly journal
contains extremely high-quality analyses of international affairs written
by civilian and military analysts, both permanent and associated research
staff. It is a useful “window” into the thinking of PLA international
security specialists, and is probably the highest-quality journal on current
international relations topics published in China today. Its breadth and
depth exceed that of the journals published by CICIR or CIIS, although
articles in the journal of the CASS Institute of World Economics and
Politics are more theoretical. Taken together, the journals of CPDS,
CICIR, CIIS and the China Institute of International Strategic Studies (the
think tank affiliated with the Second Department of the PLA General
Staff Department) offer excellent insights into the analysis of contem-

27. CPDS brochure and author’s meeting, 18 May 2000, Beijing.
28. Heping yu fazhan yanjiu zhongxin (Peace and Development Research Institute), Guoji
wenti xueshu jiaoliao dashiji (Chronology of International Scholarly Exchange) (brochure
1996).
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porary international affairs being carried out in China’s civilian and
military intelligence communities. The CPDS claims it is “mainly
financed” by CAIFC,29 which means its funds largely come from the
Ministry of State Security and PLA’s General Political Department.

Xinhua Centre for World Affairs

The Xinhua Centre for World Affairs (Xinhuashe shijie wenti yanjiu
zhongxin) (XCWA) was established in 1991 under the International
Department of Xinhua News Agency (Figure 6). It only has about ten
full-time research fellows (many of whom are also simultaneously working
in the International Department) and a small secretarial staff, but a
large number of affiliated fellows, mostly retired from Xinhua.30 The
Centre claims to focus primarily on “big powers and India.” It plays an
important role in the selection of materials to be translated and included
in the daily Reference News (Cankao ziliao or Da cankao), not an
unimportant task insofar as this publication is a critical source of information
on international affairs for China’s top leaders and officials. The
XCWA also has several other neibu document channels to the leadership
and other international affairs units.31 Nevertheless, its influence should

29. CPDS brochure.
30. Interview, 17 May 2000, Beijing.
31. I gave a talk at the XCWA one day, and when I visited the CPDS the next day CPDS
personnel already had a full typed readout of my lecture (stamped “internal reference,
carefully protect”).

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not be overstated, as it seems to be more a loose group of elderly Xinhua
correspondents than an organized institution.

Institute of Taiwan Studies

Although not an international relations institute per se, the Institute of
Taiwan Studies merits consideration in this survey. The institute is
officially under CASS, but also falls administratively and budgetarily
under several other key central-level bodies: the Taiwan Affairs Office of
the State Council (Tai ban), the Taiwan Leading Group of the Central
Committee (Zhongyang Taiwan lingdao xiaozu) and the Ministry of State
Security (Figure 7). It is the principal organization for current intelligence
on Taiwan affairs, and its staff also conduct some longer-range research
projects. In addition to its intelligence and advisory roles, the institute also
has an important role to play in the formulation of Taiwan policy. For
example, it was largely responsible for drafting the 2000 Taiwan White
Paper.32 The institute’s director is Xu Shiquan, a former Xinhua correspondent
with connections to the Chinese intelligence community and
senior Chinese leadership. The institute’s location adjacent to the College
of International Relations, and the fact that several of its staff come from
the College, are further indications of its Ministry of State Security links.

China Society for Strategy and Management

The China Society for Strategy and Management (Zhongguo zhanlu¨e yu
guanli yanjiuhui) (CSSM) is an unusual organization. It was founded
in 1983 by several individuals affiliated with the PLA Academy of

32. Interviews, 17 May and 15 October 2000.

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Military Sciences and Deng Xiaoping’s former foreign affairs advisor
Huan Xiang (who served as its first honorary chairman). Former Minister
of Defence Zhang Aiping was the first president, and he was followed by
former PLA Chief of Staff General Xiao Ke.33 In 1989 CSSM became an
“open” (gongkai) organization, permitted to have contacts with foreigners.
Prior to that time its purpose was to bring together international
security experts from the PLA and civilian intelligence community for
discussions and to prepare special reports.

At its founding it affiliated with the State Council Foreign Affairs
Office but later was transferred under the Economic Reform Institute of
the State Council.34 Since that institute was closed in the wake of Tiananmen
in 1989, it is unclear what higher-level institution now sponsors
CSSM. All Chinese think tanks require a sponsoring organ (guakao
danwei), but CSSM’s considerable financial support gained from consulting
to private sector companies and government departments provide it
not only with fiscal, but perhaps administrative, autonomy (Figure 8).
The Society’s brochure falsely indicates that it was founded on 17 June
1989 – just two weeks after the Beijing massacre.35 Its list of chairmen
and vice-chairmen reads like a Who’s Who of retired military and civilian
personnel (Gu Mu, Zhang Aiping, Xiao Ke, Yuan Baohua, Du Runsheng,
Wang Daohan, Han Nianlong, and even the former prime ministers of
Australia and Japan!).

The CSSM has a relatively small permanent research staff of approximately
ten, but operates principally as an association to draw together
experts from across Beijing and the rest of the country. They have modest
office space in the National Library of China’s annex building, but clearly
are fairly flush with funds. Only a minor degree of its sponsored research
is on international affairs, and this comes to light in the important
quarterly journal Zhanlu¨e yu guanli (Strategy and Management). These
articles often break with the mould of more official and mainstream IR
journals.

Foundation for International Strategic Studies

FISS was established in June 1989 and claims to be a “independent and
non-profit institution.”36 It further claims to have “been approved by the
People’s Bank of China and registered at the Ministry of Civil Affairs.”37
But clearly, from its inception, FISS has had strong ties to the Second
Department (Intelligence) of the PLA General Staff (Figure 9). Many of
its staff members are active duty PLA colonels or senior colonels,

33. Interview, 6 May 1998.
34. Ibid.
35. CSSM brochure, 2000.
36. FISS brochure, September 1989. FISS is not to be confused with CIISS (the China
Institute of International Strategic Studies), which is also affiliated with the Second
Department of the PLA General Staff. Since the contribution by Bates Gill and James
Mulvenon deals with CIISS, and because it is entirely a military organ (unlike FISS), I have
intentionally not included it in this survey, despite its position and importance in China’s IR
community.
37. Ibid.


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although FISS was careful to appoint a number of retired diplomats and
civilians to its advisory council. Even though it is termed a “foundation”
(an unusual title in China) FISS does not appear to give grants for
research; quite to the contrary, it actively cultivates funds from the private
sector through contract research (it also conducts research for the PLA
and Foreign Ministry). Despite a strong and promising start, FISS has not
been that active in international exchanges in recent years, although it has
served as the Chinese institutional counterpart for the Stanford-Harvard
Preventive Defense Initiative. FISS publishes no journal, but occasional
monographs.

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Shanghai Centre for International Studies

The Shanghai Centre for International Studies (Shanghai guoji wenti
yanjiu zhongxin) (SCIS) is attached to the Shanghai Municipal Government’s
Office of Foreign Affairs, and has some administrative links to the
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (Figure 10). It was established as
an autonomous organ on 3 May 1985.38 It also serves as the staff office

38. Yang Jiemian, China–US Relations, p. 140.

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for former Shanghai Mayor Wang Daohan (who remains an influential
advisor to President Jiang Zemin and a key figure on formulating policy
toward Taiwan). The SCIS is also described as playing a leading role in
assigning research projects to other IR institutions throughout Shanghai,
in circulating intelligence and other information to these institutions, in


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formulating policy papers for leaders in Beijing, and in providing information
to Shanghai companies on the international business climate.39

Shanghai Institute of International Studies

The Shanghai Institute of International Studies (Shanghai guoji wenti
yanjiusuo) (SIIS) was established in 1960 and has subsequently maintained
a strong research and analysis capability (Figure 11). While its
staff has always been smaller than its counterparts in Beijing, its quality
has generally been higher. Physical distance from Beijing also begets
intellectual distance: SIIS researchers have long been noted for putting
forward analyses and policy proposals at variance with the standard line
in Beijing. Discussions with SIIS personnel have also always exhibited a
more open and candid atmosphere than with IR think tankers in Beijing,
who frequently parrot the Party line. SIIS has traditionally had particularly
strong research capabilities on the Middle East and United States. Its
publications – which include several journals and an annual summary of
world affairs (Shijie xingshi nianjian) – are well worth reading. SIIS has
traditionally recruited its younger staff from graduates of the International
Politics Department at Shanghai’s Fudan University (some of the best and
brightest in the nation). SIIS is also a degree-granting institution, offering
an MA in international affairs.

39. Ibid.

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Today SIIS has about 80 full-time staff members, including 20 senior
fellows.40 Except for a period during the Cultural Revolution (when the
SIIS building was taken over by Lin Biao’s son Lin Liguo and was used
in the coup plot planning), SIIS has operated continuously since its
founding. It has always been administratively under the Shanghai municipal
government, from where it gets most of its funding, but for many
years it also had ties directly to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing (these
seem to have been broken in the 1980s). While Jiang Zemin was Mayor
and Party Secretary in Shanghai during the 1980s, he would frequently
receive briefings from SIIS staff members, and SIIS has subsequently
continued to have a direct channel to Jiang’s office and Jiang personally
in Beijing.

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

The Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (Shanghai shehui
kexueyuan) (SASS) is very much a scholarly research institution, rather
than a policy-relevant think tank. As detailed in Figure 12, it conducts
research in several areas of international affairs, but, with the exception
of Taiwan affairs, not much of it is of a current or policy nature.
Nevertheless, from a scholarly perspective, SASS plays an important role
in national research on IR.

40. SIIS brochure, 2000.
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China Academy of Social Sciences

The above observations about SASS also generally apply to its much
larger cousin in Beijing. CASS is a massive organization of ministerial
status, now consisting of 31 research institutes, with 3,200 full-time
researchers, over 4,000 total staff and an attached graduate school.41 The
research scope of CASS is comprehensive across the social sciences,
humanities and legal fields. In the realm of international affairs, since its
establishment in 1977 CASS has built up an impressive number of
research institutes (Figure 13). This includes one comprehensive institute
– the Institute of World Economics and Politics – as well as seven
regional studies institutes, and the affiliated Taiwan Research Institute
(see above).

Although each of these institutes can be considered think tanks in their
own right, it is important to understand that policy relevance and policy
influence is not their primary goal or function. Indeed, CASS researchers
consider themselves and their research to be scholarly: if their work has

41. CASS brochure, 1999.
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policy relevance/influence that is fine, but is not their conscious goal. The
area studies institutes (including the America Institute) are all configured
in more or less standard ways, having research sections on their given
nation’s internal politics and economies, society and culture, and external
relations. Very little, if any, research is done on military or purely
security affairs. To the extent it is done, the Arms Control Centre of the
America Institute is an exception. The Institute of World Economics and
Politics also maintains a world politics research section, which in the past
has done some strategic research, but these days it seems more interested
in IR theory.

Concluding Observations

China’s IR think tanks have grown and matured considerably over the
past two decades since relations with the Western and Asian countries
began to grow. Much of the credit for the increased quality of research is
owed to the role played by foreign institutions in educating and training
Chinese researchers. While they still operate with their own distinctly
Chinese paradigms, and also stubbornly cling to realist, state-centric and
sovereign-based analysis, researchers are much more aware of foreign
concepts and methodologies of research. While Westerners may not agree
with their analysis of international affairs, at least they now come closer
to speaking the same language. However, there remains a large
“perception gap” between their analyses and those of American, European,
Japanese or other Asian IR and security analysts – and there is
minimal evidence that this gap is being narrowed.

Over time the policy influence of China’s IR think tanks has fluctuated,
but has generally grown. As a result, China’s officials and leaders are
now better informed about the world, which, it is to be hoped, means that
they better understand the consequences of their actions before they take
them. If they are performing this role, then China’s IR think tanks are
making an important and positive contribution to China’s relations with
the world.
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