Watching the "Watchers"

Researching China's academics and think tankers

Poring over the well and less well-considered thoughts of Chinese non-governmental experts has long been one way for researchers to peer into the black box. With the closing of China’s borders and democratization of publication outlets (Twitter, Substack), it has been more common and easier than ever to share translations and summaries of works by scholars from China. And yet, the quality of this analysis varies, and crucial context is not always included. In my view, even well-respected institutions have room for improvement on this front.

Texual-based open source research is both incomplete and difficult. It is not a silver bullet to pierce the bamboo curtain; only a combination of methods can really allow you to understand what goes on in China. And yet, even the efforts that occur require a high degree of discipline to succeed. Despite my qualms with it, texual research is certainly an important window onto China that I have and will continue to employ. Intellectual humility is always important in this endeavor.

There are many who can commentate on this topic more authoritatively than I can, but I think I can still contribute to the discussion on how to do this work well. Hopefully, the entire universe of texual-based China commentary can improve due to the inputs of many, and I aspire for my own skills to rise in the process. As always, I am happy to hear disagreements and feedback. The rest of the article gets pretty weedy and detailed, especially if you are not a China researcher, so be forewarned.

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The Systemic Lens

One major challenge to researchers is the differences in how China’s non-governmental advisory system works compared to the US. In the US, you can often read what high level policymakers have previously written—books or Foreign Affairs articles of Kurt Campbell, Ely Ratner, Elizabeth Economy etc. supply plenty of grist to the mill. Meanwhile, you can easily surmise that Michelle Flournoy and Ryan Hass likely have ties to this administration, while Mike Pompeo or Miles Yu are in the wilderness.

In contrast, identifying which Chinese scholars are “close” to Xi Jinping is like catching lightening in a bottle. Sure, there are rumors. Some friends have told me that they think nationalistic leaning scholars like Jin Canrong [金灿荣] of Renmin University are close to Xi. But, these rumors are nigh impossible to really pin down, and many, contradicting views swirl around. I generally would advise putting only limited stock in rumors regarding which experts are up and down. Even in stronger cases, such as the idea that Peking University don Wang Jisi’s [王缉思] “march west” concept influenced the creation of the Belt and Road Initiative, it is unclear if there was a way to anticipate Wang’s impact before his article as well as whether he continued to have influence after sowing the initial seed. Attempting to trace with high fidelity the Xi Jinping-whisperers among the scholarly class is an extraordinarily difficult and fraught errand.

To a certain degree, it is possible to establish fuzzy rankings of researcher “influence” through both academic citations and policy “citations.” Journal citations can suggest influence in academic circles, but in China as in the US, that does not necessarily correlate to policy influence. On the other hand, the pishi [批示] does to some extent. When scholars submit written briefings (internal or unclassified) to government officials, officials can scribble a comment on the report, which is called pishi. When a document receives pishi from a high-level official, the document (regardless of its original classification level) becomes classified. The scholar is told that the document received pishi, but nothing more. Thus, pishi is one metric for scholarly success, but the data is usually not published openly, and researchers and institutions may be reluctant to share that information. Further muddying the water, pishi does not universally indicate leadership approval and is not always followed by concrete policy activity. Trying to figure out who is close to Xi via the most objective criteria possible, pishi, would be near impossible and still problematic. The photo below is allegedly a document that received pishi from then Vice-Premier Zhu Rongji.

Moreover, I have come to understand that identifying the top Chinese scholar in a field is not the most important approach. From my conversations with Chinese academics,¹ the impact of academics is more diffuse than in the American model; power is dispersed rather than concentrated. Chinese academics will often be contracted to write a report for a government body (eg. the Foreign Ministry), and multiple scholars may be asked to write a report on the same issue. Or, a seminar may be convened with ten prominent scholars to hear their views on an issue. In these venues, the government is taking the temperature of the room, and listening for concrete policy advice. High level takes that challenge the overall government position will likely fall on deaf ears. Sometimes, policymakers are trying to take stock of overall sentiments, and sometimes they are only listening for what they want to hear. Ironically, an arguably more complete slice of the commentariat is represented compared to the US due to the importance of party affiliation in the US context, even though Chinese scholars may be more reluctant to challenge the government.

Practicing Research

How then should researchers watch China’s America watchers? My three steps to success are:

1. understand an individual’s institutional affiliations

2. situate them in the debate

3. map out positions of commonality rather than divergence.

Few statements are more banal than saying that “Mr. Wang is an influential scholar” or “Ms. Zhang works at the noted or influential university or think tank, XXX.” Even worse is saying that some institution is “government-linked” or “government affiliated.”² Any Chinese institution could be government-linked depending on your criteria. Naming the think tank or university and any formal affiliations are key for understanding what intellectual milieu the scholar hails from. Knowing their seniority and intellectual background is also important—sociologists think differently from economists. But we also have to be careful and note that institutions are not everything. For instance, I have been told that the China Center for Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) [现代国际关系研究院], a think tank supervised by China’s spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) [国安部], has close ties throughout the foreign policy apparatus and is not simply MSS's think tank. While I may have been lied to about CICIR, for “independent” think tanks or university-affiliated think tanks, the institutional biases are less sure. Nevertheless, as much specificity as possible should be provided about an individual’s influence and/or institutional background. There are so many people who “study Europe” or “study the US” at various think tanks with government ties. Unless more information is provided to the reader, an America specialist at CIIS [国际问题研究院] (under the Foreign Ministry), CASS [社科院] (more academic leaning), and AMS [军事科学院] (under PLA) might all seem the same. This helps readers understand someone’s expertise, institutional biases, and target audience, which will assist in interpretation.

For instance, Wang Jisi [王缉思] and Wang Dong [王栋] are both “influential” scholars of US foreign policy based at Peking University. However, Wang Jisi is a level above in terms of age and prominence, while Wang Dong is younger. Though they are both considered more dovish on the US, they have different think tanks and I am not aware of any co-authored works, so they may not actually work closely together. Meanwhile, they probably have a less-direct line to the government than experts at China’s Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), who despite sometimes rising to the ranks of Major General, are more similar to professors or researchers at military instructional facilities (eg. US Army War College) than battlefield commanders. And AMS probably has fewer relationships with the diplomatic corps than professors at China Foreign Affairs College [外交学院] (CFAC) or the China Institute for International Studies (CIIS).

The boundaries of the debate and the areas of consensus are more meaningful than any individual’s personal position, even “interesting” areas of dissention. If we know what issues arouse the most controversy, we can get a picture for which ideas are likely important—yet uncertain—for the government. For instance, one Chinese scholar told me that several years ago there was a robust internal debate over whether China remains a developing country, demonstrating an awareness that China has “arrived” as a global power but that it is uncertain about how to wield its newfound status. Or, based on research I conducted in early 2022 on Chinese scholars of the US (“America watchers”), one major topic of debate was whether the US was in decline, reflecting a certain level of skepticism of the US, but indicating that the topic is not settled. Other important debates still ongoing among Chinese America watchers include how to define relations with the US and how cooperative China’s policy towards the US should be, indicating the need to form a reaction to the hardened policy from Washington.

Meanwhile, we can learn more from consensus than dissention. Fringe views often attract greater attention and seem more alluring. And yet, for this enterprise, boring wins over interesting. Since no one individual is supremely influential (at least in a way that we can discern preemptively from the outside), any number of “notable” scholars could influence policy. Rather than taking any of these data points as gospel, we can see where the overall scatterplot is most concentrated. This sheds lights on where generally the government’s views most likely reside. For instance, on the issue of American decline, the mainstream view I found was that the US is in relative decline to China, but not absolute decline, with views mixed on whether China’s rise is certain. This suggests that we should be skeptical (though not dismissive) of assessments that the Chinese government thinks the US is in complete free fall. Meanwhile, it would not be out of the scholarly norm for top leaders to see China’s rise as inevitable—the question is hotly debated, therefore either position on the issue is mainstream. Of course, following the mainstream can only get you so far, as Zhongnanhai has no standing requirement to follow the mass of scholarly opinion. Yet, if you analyze the outliers without knowing that they are outliers, then mistakes will occur.

One of the best examples I have seen of this type of research is the newly minted Center for Strategic Translation’s (CST) treatment of the phrase “great changes unseen in a century” [百年未有之大变局]. The article compares translations of six articles written by different scholars for the same issue of an academic journal on the topic, offering a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast the views of the scholars. The analysis is excellent, and while I think there is always small things you can quibble with,³ it really is well done. Meanwhile, CSIS Interpret, another excellent pioneer in the field, did a better job with its analysis of four articles on crisis management than its earlier treatment of a single article on deterrence—simply because you should always be very careful about what you extrapolate from a single article. The transcript of CST’s recent event with David Ownby, Jude Blanchette, and Nadège Rolland also wonderfully treats a lot of the key principles for conducting this sort of research (though Jude tragically errs in his sacrilegious dislike of Leys’ “rhinoceros sausage” quotation).

I am certain I will violate some of the principles I have just stated above, and I will likely remain not fully satisfied with the depth of insight we can gain from textual analysis alone. Nevertheless, I will continue using it as one (imperfect) lens, and I hope my skills and those of the entire community can continue to improve.

1. I have only talked to about 10-20 folks in Chinese policy advisory roles, and there are many who have spent more hours talking to academics than I have. But, I have moderate confidence in this view due to the consistency of answers I received.

2. Unless someone is distinguishing an institution from being party affiliated.

3. For instance, I am not sure I would call Nanjing’s Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies a “state think tank” because as far as I am aware its relationship to the government is qualitatively different than that of eg. the Development Research Center.