China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2019 | Page 30

Chinese Foreign Policy Think Tanks’ Policy Influence
er, he may hear some idea from an expert
and agree with it. In this way, policy
influence is immediately achieved.
Sometimes, important political dignitaries
may leave a high-level forum or
other form of meeting after they present
keynote speeches, because they
are very busy, but afterwards they may
spend some time to read the briefings
or records of that meeting, particularly
those records of policy discussions. So,
case studies are needed for analyzing
specific circumstances on specific policy
issues.
After a clarification of all these
types, it is practicable to make a more
detailed calculation on the participatory
rates of various groups of political
actors in each type of CIIS and SIIS
meetings. Tables 4 and 5 list the results
of this calculation on CIIS and SIIS, respectively.
Table 3: Characteristics of Six Major Types of Meetings Frequently Held by CIIS and SIIS
Types of meetings
Characteristics of
meetings
I. Highlevel
forum
II.
Workshop
program
III.
Regular
dialogue
IV.
Symposium
on specific
issues
V. Lecture
meeting
VI.
Bilateral
meeting
Total number of
participants
Large
(50–200)
Middle
(20–50)
Uncertain
Middle–
small
(10–50)
Small
(10–30)
Small
(10–30)
Degree of
formalness
Highly
formal
Very
formal
Very
formal
Formal
Less
formal
Less
formal
Level of
institutionalization
Uncertain High Very high Uncertain Low Uncertain
Extensiveness of
representation
High
High to
medium
Medium Medium Low Low
Concentration of
issues
Low Medium High High Very high Uncertain
Time span 1–2 days 3–10 days 1–2 days 1–2 days 0.5–1 days 0.5–1 days
Table 4 shows the details of the
CIIS’s connections with the four “subfields”
of politics, academia (including
other think tanks), business, and media
within China’s “field of power” through
BRI meetings. It displays the varied closeness
of CIIS’s links with each of these
four subfields and indicates the different
importance of each subfield as a channel
for CIIS to exert its BRI policy influence.
Also, this table tells the frequencies of
each type of meeting held by CIIS, depicting
the significance of each type in
CIIS’s effort to influence BRI policy.
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