China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2019 | Page 28

Chinese Foreign Policy Think Tanks’ Policy Influence
Table 2: The General Structural Characteristics of CIIS and SIIS-Sponsored Meetings on
BRI Issues (Third Quarter of 2014 to Third Quarter of 2017) a
Statistical categories
Meetings sponsored
by CIIS or SIIS and
joined by central
and provincial-level
policymakers as
keynote speakers
Names of think tanks
From departments of CCP’s
Central Committee
a
Every meeting might have many participants from each category of those social and political
groups identified on the left column of this table, so it is inevitable to make repeated or
overlapped calculation on the numbers of meetings on different lines. Therefore, it is of no
meaning to vertically or horizontally sum up any numbers in this table.
No.
CIIS
% to its
total
No.
SIIS
% to its
total
3 3.4% 4 2.8%
From MOF system 39 45.3% 18 12.5%
From MOC, or MOT, or
NDRC or Other Central
Executive Institutions
handling foreign economic
policy
From other central executive
institutions
From China’s nonexecutive
central-level policymaking
institutions (such as the NPC,
or CPPCC)
Meetings sponsored by CIIS or SIIS and joined by
provincial-level policymakers as keynote speakers
Meetings sponsored by
CIIS or SIIS and joined
by foreign officials as
keynote speakers
From foreign embassies
and consulates stationed
in China
From foreign
policymaking
institutions, who visited
China
10 11.6% 11 7.6%
6 7% 5 3.8%
3 3.5% 2 1.4%
6 7% 20 13.9%
25 29.1% 26 18%
30 34.9% 25 17.4%
Total number of meeting on BRI issues 86 144
committee issued the “Plan for Deepening
the Reform on the Institutions of
the Party and the State” with a design
of a “Central Foreign Affairs Commission”
that aims at making foreign
policy decision-making competences
further centralized into CCP’s central
party apparatus. As this plan took into
effect on March 17, 2018, the previous
central-level concentration of foreign
policy-related information, power, and
resources may be further strengthened.
Furthermore, Table 2 indicates
that CIIS enjoys a relatively more ad-
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