China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2019 | Page 35

China Policy Journal
The more nuanced data of Tables
4 and 5 confirms the basic pattern already
sketched by Table 3, which may
be clarified and elaborated into the following
three points:
First, both CIIS and SIIS are
closely linked to central-level policymakers,
but CIIS is far less connected
to provincial policymakers than SIIS.
The participatory rates of provincial officials
in CIIS meetings are much lower
than the participatory rates of Shanghai
policymakers in SIIS meetings generally,
8 but the overall participatory rates
of central ministerial officials in both
CIIS and SIIS meetings are on similarly
high levels. CIIS appears to be relatively
closer to MOF than SIIS, which
is natural because CIIS is directly affiliated
to MOF, but it is no closer than
SIIS to the central ministries of foreign
economic policymaking, such as MOC,
MOT, and NDRC, a sign of “stove-piping.”
Furthermore, SIIS’s connections
with MOF system and central foreign
economic policymaking ministries are
also similarly close. More specifically
speaking, SIIS’s intimate links to MOC,
MOT, and NDRC are completely concentrated
on BRI-related meetings
of type I (high-level forum), type II
(workshop program), and type V (lec-
ture meeting). All in all, CIIS is very
intensively connected to the MOF system,
less closely linked to foreign economic
policy-related central ministries
and very distant from provincial-level
institutions, while SIIS has to divide
its resources to concurrently maintain
substantial connections with both central-level
policymaking institutions and
Shanghai municipal authority, at least
on BRI issues.
Second, SIIS itself is much closer
to central policymakers than it is to
Shanghai policymakers. 9 Of all the six
types of meetings held by SIIS, Shanghai
municipal officials were almost
completely absent from three types
of these meetings: type II (workshop
programs), type III (regular dialogues
with stakeholders of BRI-related policy
areas), and type V (lecture meetings),
while central-level policymakers
from both MOF and central foreign
economic policymaking ministries actively
participated in these three types
of meeting. As a matter of fact, BRI-related
meetings of types II, III, and V act
as important platforms for face-to-face
contacts of the relatively exclusive inner
circles of interpersonal networks,
on which crucial information for policymaking
is transferred to relevant
8 In China’s territorial executive administration system, Shanghai Municipality is one of the four provincial-level
municipalities under direct control of China’s central government. Therefore, Shanghai
municipal leaders are usually provincial-level officials.
9 Several SIIS experts interviewed by the author of this paper denied that SIIS is a provincial-level
think tank. They argued that although it is located in Shanghai, not Beijing, “SIIS still represents top
level research capacity of the whole nation and possesses ‘very direct channels’ of interactions with
top leadership in Beijing.” They thought that the term of “provincial level think tank” downgrades
the outstanding position of SIIS and underestimates its policy influence. Later, they admitted that
SIIS is financially dependent on the Shanghai Municipal Government, not the central government,
as a “Fully-Appropriated Non-Profit Institution.” Their dislike of the term of “provincial level” reveals
the special importance of maintaining close links to central policymakers and the relative
peripheral position of provincial policymakers in foreign policy decision making.
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