Do Not Blindly Follow American Think Tank’s Nonsense

In a recent mini international seminar held at Tsinghua University, Professor Moisés Naím, a longtime researcher of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has also served as the editor-in-chief of the Foreign Policy magazine for some 14 years, brought to attention two profound issues. The first was that in the past five years, almost all the doctrines and ideas that have been able to spark global attention and dispute started out in — rather than outside of — the U.S. The second was that even though the U.S. boasts the largest foreign policy research think tank, the gap between research and policy makers and their actual foreign policy is growing.

These two issues not only demonstrate American pride, but also reflect the country’s self- and danger-awareness. America is well-known for boasting the most powerful research think tank. On both sides of Massachusetts Avenue in Washington alone are clustered such famous policy institutes as the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and some 50 other think tanks. In addition, like a “revolving door,” the identity between the scholars and the officials changes with flexibility. No wonder researchers around the world who work on international relations generally look to America and its model as an example from which to learn. If that is the case, why would Professor Naím pensively express the sentiment that the gap between the scholars and the politicians is growing while he himself is standing on top of the world?

As a matter of fact, Professor Naím himself has answered this question. He said that the intense competition among the many think tanks in the U.S. results in the explosion of different doctrines and ideas. I agree with his judgment. At the same time, I think that “intense competition” itself is a two-edged sword: While it stimulates thought, it also leads people to come up with doctrines and ideas that outwit others or are misleading in order to attract attention and to boost popularity. This has resulted in the growing gap between scholars and politicians. In other words, the emergence of some doctrines and ideas is not based on strict scrutiny or serious logical reasoning. Rather, it is based on the pursuit and extolment of “quaint talk,” and it becomes more and more flourished. At the same time, however, these quaint talks gradually fade away from public vision because they have no connection whatsoever with reality; their gaining recognition from political leaders is totally out of the question. Ever since the Cold War, the so-called “theory of China’s collapse,” “China-threat theory” and “theory of China’s responsibility” or “Sino-American two states theory” are no exception.

When we look at ourselves, our own think tank, which is limited in numbers, is still in its early stage of being crystallized because of our history and system, so there is no real “intense competition.” Objectively speaking, this does not prevent the Chinese think tank from acting on realism or offering pertinent, feasible suggestions with respect to foreign policy. The second “gap” which Professor Naím touched on is reducing rather than expanding in China. The reduction in the first “gap,” however, is definitely not something that happens overnight. Besides such “hardware” as global communication tools and a voice, we also need such “software” as a long-range view, open-mindedness and a diversified framework to establish think tanks.

In addition, it is imperative that Chinese scholars maintain good judgment in the process of establishing global public confidence in the Chinese think tank. As for the “quaint talk” the American think tanks invented so as to lure people’s attention, China’s scholars can just listen to it while taking caution so as not to be blindly guided or influenced by the “crap” of a report from an American or any other Western think tank.

(The author is Director of African Studies of the Institute of Western Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.)