Thinking About Thinking in China

Among the lesser-known policy goals promoted by Xi Jinping since he became China’s president last year was a call to improve the nation’s think tanks.

Now, researchers in Shanghai have published a blueprint for what they are calling a think tank with Chinese characteristics. Published this month in Chinese and English, the 38-page report is the product of a Center for Think Tank Research at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Think tanks—geeky institutions with opinions—seek to drive policymaking in the West.

Washington’s Brookings Institution strives for quality, independence and impact, according to its website.  Santa Monica, Calif.-based Rand Corp. focuses on objective analysis and effective solutions.

Such goals are tough for an organization to sell in China, where leaders prefer outside voices to cheer policy decisions already made.

Chinese think tanks, the new report says, should first “keep a balance between influence and independence.”  The point, according to the report is to strike a balance between “puppet of the government and catering to public opinion.”

Yet the report indicates a growing realization that stronger critical thinking is needed to support a Chinese leadership that faces increasingly tough decisions running the No. 2 global economy and a budding military superpower, not to mention in governing the world’s biggest population.

The report highlights a reminder by Mr. Xi last April that the “think tank is an important part of a country’s soft power.”

The report ranks top Chinese think tanks by “comprehensive influence”: at the top is the Development Research Center of the State Council, followed by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Chinese think tanks do play a role in Chinese policy making. One of the more influential reports on China in recent years was a study done in 2012 by the World Bank along with China’s Development Research Center that called for broad changes in the way the government runs the giant enterprises under its control. The same research center last year weighed in on a possible way forward for China’s financial sector.

The new report describes Chinese think tanks as being at a “growth stage.” It said while Chinese bureaucrats increasingly solicit opinions from within think tanks for major decisions, funding and other links to the Communist Party, the military and China’s government makes for “great administrative dependence.”

It said nongovernmental think tanks lack funding and mechanisms to share information. And too many researchers do boring work, it said.

“These factors constrain influence and innovation capacity of the Chinese think tanks…which is not conducive to social progress and seizing power of discourse in international communities,” it said.

The report stops short of calling for Western-style reforms within think tanks. It says Chinese organizations could do a better job differentiating themselves with more specialized research. And it recommends that government authorities do more to encourage independent-minded consulting.