Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Think Tanks Urged to Help Boost China-Russia Ties

As China and Russia appear to be cozying up to each other and drifting further apart from the US, they have begun working closely on think tank coordination.

Here is more from China Daily:

Think tanks in China and Russia should maintain close relations and deepen their cooperation to face common challenges and bring mutual development, experts from both countries said on Thursday.

The China and Russia: Joint Development and Modernization International Symposium, and the publishing ceremony for the think tank report series "Russia-Eurasia Studies"-both co-hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the China-Russia Friendship Committee for Peace and Development and China Daily-were held at Beijing International Hotel.

The event was co-organized by the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the CASS, the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and China Watch, China Daily's think tank.

Over 60 government officials and experts, who participated in the symposium and publishing ceremony by either attending the conference in person or joining the discussion via video link, had a comprehensive discussion about China-Russian relations and Eurasian affairs.

 

According to the latest University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, the US has 2,203 think tanks, China has 1,413, and Russia has 143. 

Meanwhile, Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) is expanding its ties with European think tanks, as they are interested in Taiwan's experience in countering China's security threat. 

"Since its establishment in May 2018 by the Ministry of National Defense, the institute has interacted with think tanks or research agencies in the US, New Zealand, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and Europe, its budget plans over the past few years showed," notes the Taipei Times.

While DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu said that INDSR is Taiwan's only "official" think tank, Taiwan actually has 44 think tanks, according to the latest University of Pennsylvania statistics.