China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2019 | Page 23

China Policy Journal
horizontal fragmentation checks the
inherent balance of “dual leadership”
because it helps to concentrates more
power and resources along the provincial
and below-provincial lines of governing
apparatus. Moreover, for most
of the time, central-level ministries and
institutions are not directly connected
to “horizontal fragmentation” structure
because they perch on the highest level
of territorial executive administration
and are directly controlled by the
party’s top-level apparatus. CIIS and
SIIS’s interactions with policymakers
are largely structured by this oscillating
dynamic, and their positions and policy
influences evolve forward in pace with
this cyclic sway. This crisscrossed pattern
largely builds the macro “field of
power” within which the CIIS and SIIS
operate.
4. The Influence of the CIIS
and SIIS on BRI Policymaking:
An Empirical Study with a
Focus on Their Meetings
The “Belt and Road Initiative”
(BRI) originated from President
Xi Jinping’s speech in Kazakhstan
in September 2013. During late
2013 and the whole year of 2014, this
idea of constructing a China-led multilateral
cooperative network connecting
East Asia littoral with European coasts
became constantly amplified, specified
and substantiated, with China’s top
leadership coming to view it as a grand
blueprint that may guide China’s foreign
economic relations in the future.
On March 28, 2015, MOF, MOC, and
the National Development and Reform
Commission (NDRC) jointly issued a
document named “Vision and Actions
on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic
Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk
Road,” which was the first comprehensive
policy document for the BRI.
During the most part of 2015 and the
whole year of 2016, Chinese government
engaged in negotiating with foreign
countries for feasible frameworks
of bilateral BRI cooperation, such as the
“16+1” mechanism for infrastructure–
building collaborations between China
and Central and Eastern Europe, and
establishing new institutions in support
of BRI, such as the Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB). The Belt and
Road Forum for International Cooperation
held in May 2017 signals a peak
in Chinese authority’s policymaking activities
on BRI issues.
Because of the BRI’s special significance,
the influence of CIIS and SIIS
on China’s BRI policymaking can offer
a typical case depicting the structural
features of China’s policymaking system
and Chinese foreign policy think
tanks’ role and position in it. Nevertheless,
due to the difficulty of gathering
accurate data, it is not quite possible to
draw a panoramic picture that portrays
all the means and channels employed
by CIIS and SIIS to influence BRI policymaking,
nor is it practicable to take
precise calculations on the effectiveness
of these two think tanks’ policy influence.
This paper aims at analyzing a
single form regularly used by CIIS and
SIIS to interact with and deal an impact
on policymaking system: think tank
meeting. This is because every Chinese
think tank tends to keep a record of its
14