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.

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 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.