Think Tank Quickies (#195)

• Think tanks close to the Chinese government calling for a two-child policy.
• "America's colleges are liberal think tanks."
• Phebe Novakovic, CEO of General Dynamics, "notably scarce" on the Washington think tank circuit.
• Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) soon-to-be chief of staff David Hoppe has, like many lobbyists, "moved back and forth between government, think tanks, and K Street."  
• Think tank R Street Institute: 15 Reasons Why CRS Reports Should be Public.  (One reason is "they cannot freely share their work with peers in academia and think tanks.")
• Foreign Policy: Qatar boosts outreach to US think tanks.
• Abdulateef Al-Mulhim: Saudi Arabia doesn't have any proper think tanks.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling for ExxonMobil probe for its funding of certain think tanks.
• Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips on ending ban on crude oil exports: "All the universities, the think tanks have studied it.  It's good for the consumer, it's good for the country, it's good for government."
• Brookings says end war on medical marijuana research.

Chinese Think Tank Helping Restart North Korea Nuclear Talks

This is from Reuters:

A Chinese government-backed think-tank will host a forum with officials from six countries involved in stalled talks on North Korea's banned nuclear weapons program, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, in China's latest push to resume discussions.

Numerous efforts to restart the six-party talks have failed after negotiations collapsed following the last round in 2008. At the time, North Korea declared the deal void, after refusing inspections to verify compliance. 

Academics and experts from China, the United States, Russia, South Korea, Japan and North Korea will attend the Beijing event, hosted by the China Institute of International Studies think-tank, on Friday and Saturday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will address the gathering, the Foreign Ministry said in a short notice on its website, without saying who else will attend.

According to the latest University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) is ranked as the world's 36th best think tank.  It is ranked as the third best think tank among the countries of China, India, Korea, and Japan.

This summer, CIIS and Brookings held a closed-door session in Washington, DC on US-China relations.

Technically, CIIS is the think tank of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  It was founded in 1956 under the name Institute of International Relations, and eventually became CIIS in 1986.  Its current president is Su Ge.

In related think tank news on China, it has just been reported that this month will mark the first time that representatives from top security think tanks in both the US and China will make public exchanges at the International Security Conference in Beijing.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece on a US think tank's use of satellite photographs of islands being developed by China and how they could sour the upcoming US visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Think Tank Quickies (#191)

• China's rise alarming US think tanks.
• Search think funding around the world (including US) at Foundation Maps, via Foundation Center.
• Prominent healthcare economist Deborah Freund joins RAND. 
• Spencer Ackerman: "Just once I want a DC think tank report to say plainly, 'This research is not designed to be true.  It is designed to be useful.'"
• Indian think tanks in the military field.
• Brookings: Is al-Bahgdadi the new bin Laden?
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) does libertarian Cato on Sept. 16.
• State Dept. and White House interact regularly with think tanks; intel community not so much. 
• "Higher education providers" like think tanks are booming.
• Partisan think tanks/researchers prone to produce results that confirm their own political leanings.

Will CSIS's New Satellite Intel on China Dampen Xi Visit?

New satellite imagery taken for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has the potential to dampen the mood of the upcoming visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping.  Here is more from The Washington Post.

China appears to be taking new steps to lay down airfields on two reefs in a disputed area of the South China Sea on the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Sept. 24 arrival in Washington for a state visit.

Commercial satellite photos taken Tuesday for the Center for Strategic and International Studies show that China is flattening, rolling and putting gravel on an area the size of a military runway on Subi Reef, a once-submerged shoal that Beijing has built up into an area suitable for a military base. The flattened area is about 200 feet wide and nearly 1.4 miles long but is expected to grow and be covered with asphalt, say China experts who have examined the satellite photos.

The new construction seems certain to strain the meeting between Xi and President Obama, whose national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, was recently in Beijing. The United States has urged China to stop work in the region, and Beijing said in August that it would halt reclamation. But the satellite photos show that construction continues.

While the Tuesday commercial satellite photos were taken for CSIS, a separate Sept. 3 satellite photo posted on the Diplomat news Web site Thursday evening showed the same developments.

The satellite photos were taken for the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) as CSIS.  That program has just announced that current director Dr. Mira Rapp-Hooper is leaving that program and the new director of AMTI will be Gregory Poling.  Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post describing the background of the AMTI program.

Here is what CSIS has to say on decoding China's maritime decision-making.  Here is CSIS's "Island Tracker" where you can explore China's island-building prowess.  Here is the think tank's latest analysis on the island building by China.

In related Asia news at CSIS, the think tank has just announced the launch of a bipartisan commission to develop a comprehensive economic strategy for the United States to pursue vital US interests in the Asia-Pacific region.  The Asia Economic Strategy Commission (AESC) will be chaired by Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, Evan Greenberg, and Gov. Jon Huntsman.

Think Tank Quickies (#187)

• China-backed think tank (Madariaga-College of Europe Foundation) exits Brussels.
• Chinese defense think tanks face enormous challenges.
• India's most influential think tanks.
• Leader of Korea's ruling Saenuri Party, Rep. Kim Moo-sung to visit think tanks such as Wilson Center and Brookings during 7-day trip.
• Conservative think tanks wants the White House Science Czar's private emails. 
• Guyana needs more think tanks.
• Renaming a think tank in Singapore.
• Ideological divide between US and Russian think tanks? 
• Jimmy Carter's grandson to take over as chairman of Carter Center.
• What's the point of development think tanks?
• CFR map on vaccine-preventable outbreaks.
• Who says the summer doesn't have cool think tank events?  See Hudson Institute's August 3 event Cyber-Enabled Economic Warfare - An Evolving Challenge, and Atlantic Council's July 29 event Rethinking Commercial Espionage.

Think Tanks Trying to Score Visit From Chinese President

Chinese President Xi Jinping is coming to the United States in September, and think tanks are falling over themselves trying to get him to speak at their institution.  Why such desires from think tank land?  Landing a big-name figure like the Chinese president brings prestige, media attention, and respect, among other things.
Here is what one Chinese newspaper is reporting:

[Chinese Ambassador to the United States] Cui Tiankai says numerous organizations and think-tanks have sent out requests for Xi Jinping to speak to them.  He says they're doing their best to try to fit as many in as they can.

Mr. Xi seems to have a particular affinity toward think tanks, and he and his group may want to do in-person studies of how the US's most powerful and influential think tanks operate.

But don't worry think tankers.  If you don't score Mr. Xi, there is always Pope Francis.  He will be visiting Washington, DC later this year and may want to visit a think tank or two.

Think Tank Quickies (#184)

• What are think tanks thinking about EU-China relations? (via European Parliamentary Research Service)
• Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and IMF chief Christine Lagarde speak at Brookings on July 8; DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson speaks at CSIS on July 8.
• Cato scholar blasts Atlantic Council for allowing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to speak.
• Cato Institute on the miracle of air-conditioning.
• NBR scholar (and former CNAS scholar) Abraham Denmark named as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia.
• AEI President Arthur Brooks' new book Conservative Heart coming out July 14.
• Lauren Bohn: Male talkfest at think tanks isn't just anecdotal.
• CSIS pics of disputed islands used to attack China on environment.
• World Bank deletes section on China report.  Do think tanks also cave into the same pressure?

USG Paying Attention as Think Tanker Warns of WWIII with China

A 40-year-old Senior Fellow at the think tank New America Foundation (NAF) is causing a stir in the Defense Department and intelligence agencies with his predictions about World War III.  Here is more from The Wall Street Journal:

Peter Singer, one of Washington’s pre-eminent futurists, is walking the Pentagon halls with an ominous warning for America’s military leaders: World War III with China is coming.

In meeting after meeting with anyone who will listen, this modern-day soothsayer wearing a skinny tie says America’s most advanced fighter jets might be blown from the sky by their Chinese-made microchips and Chinese hackers easily could worm their way into the military’s secretive intelligence service, and the Chinese Army may one day occupy Hawaii.

The ideas might seem outlandish, but Pentagon officials are listening to the 40-year-old senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

In hours of briefings, Mr. Singer has outlined his grim vision for intelligence officials, Air Force officers and Navy commanders. What makes his scenarios more remarkable is that they are based on a work of fiction: Mr. Singer’s soon-to-be-released, 400-page techno thriller, “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War.”

Pentagon officials typically don’t listen to the doom-and-gloom predictions of fiction writers. But Mr. Singer comes to the table with an unusual track record. He has written authoritative books on America’s reliance on private military contractors, cybersecurity and the Defense Department’s growing dependence on robots, drones and technology.

The Army, Navy and Air Force already have included two of his books on their official reading lists. And he often briefs military leaders on his research.

Here is a bio of Mr. Singer, who was the founding director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution (which Think Tank Watch calls a "Mini-CIA").  He was the youngest person named senior fellow in that think tanks 100 year history.

A copy of the book Ghost Fleet, co-written by August Cole, can be found here.  Mr. Cole is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Here is a Popular Science Q&A about Singer's new book and a possible future war with China.  Here is what Brookings scholar Michael O'Hanlon, a friend and former colleague of Singer, says about the new book.

In related think tank/war news, Michele Flournoy and Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post entiteld "Go Big to Destroy the Islamic State."