China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2019 | Page 25

China Policy Journal
system, but also it is likely to assess the
degree of influence of these two think
tanks on certain issues.
Of course, there are some limitations
when meetings are analyzed
for describing think tank’s policy influence.
Some meetings, particularly some
large-scaled forums or seminars funded
by the state, are functioning as platform
for “track 2” or “track 1.5” diplomacy.
They are organized partly for the purpose
of publicizing official policy or
public relations. CIIS and SIIS may use
these meetings to send out policy messages
in line with official instructions to
certain groups of audiences. However,
meetings offer an incomparable convenience
of making face-to-face contact
with policymakers. No other form of
think tank activities can offer occasions
or chances of interpersonal communication
that are as direct and immediate
as meetings. As long as policymakers
appear at the meetings, they will inevitably
get in touch with experts of
think tanks and representatives of social
groups, hear these people’s voices,
and become more or less influenced by
their fresh information, ideas, or opinions.
Since it is difficult to definitely or
precisely pinpoint or calculate a think
tank’s policy influence, meetings can be
regarded as a convenient and vivid mirror
from which a think tank’s influence
may be outlined and analyzed more
meticulously.
4.2 The Pace and Rhythm of CIIS
and SIIS Meetings and Their
Relevance on BRI Policymaking
It might be difficult to directly calculate
the influence of CIIS and SIIS
meetings over BRI policy. However, as
time passes by, CIIS and SIIS are sponsoring
and organizing an uninterrupted
stream of meetings on BRI issues,
month by month and quarter by quarter.
Meanwhile, the Chinese authority,
particularly its executive institutions,
are producing a stream of policy documents
recording and declaring its BRI
policies, in accordance with new ideas
and perceptional changes of China’s
top leaders. Therefore, some kind of influence
of these two think tanks might
be verified if some relevance might be
found between the quarterly change
of numbers of CIIS and SIIS meetings,
and the quarterly fluctuations of
numbers of documents issued by China’s
central policymaking institutions
of the party and state that declared
new points and directives of BRI policy
during the same period. Figure 4 is
made from this idea.
As is indicated in Figure 4, numbers
of CIIS and SIIS meetings are exactly
following the same direction of
rises and falls, revealing their largely
synchronized pace and rhythm of research
and associated communicative
activities. Quarterly numbers of central-level
documents declaring BRI policy
did not fluctuate at the exact same
pace and rhythm as those of CIIS and
SIIS meetings, but there is an interlock
between them. From a broader perspective,
the quarterly numerical changes of
both the BRI policy documents and the
meetings of CIIS and SIIS are shaped by
and interconnected to the development
of the perceptions and ideas of China’s
top leadership.
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