Jose Andres Launches Food Think Tank

For more than a decade, celebrity chef Jose Andres has dreamed of opening a think tank for food, and that dream has finally arrived.

Here is more from a George Washington University (GWU) press release:

George Washington University and world-renowned chef, author, and humanitarian Jose Andres are announcing a historic partnership to launch a premier Global Food Institute at GW, a transformative and unprecedented collaboration that will be the world leader in food system solution delivery.

GW is uniquely positioned to drive global progress in the food space, thanks to its location in the heart of the nation’s capital, depth of academic expertise across countless disciplines, track record of leading critical conversations in the public and private sectors and partnerships with global influencers from the White House to the World Bank.

Driven by Andrés’ vision of changing the world through the power of food, the Global Food Institute at GW will work to transform people’s lives and the health of the planet, taking an interdisciplinary systems approach across three main pillars: policy, innovation and humanity.  The institute will enable faculty and students from every school and college, industry leaders, policymakers and renowned experts to work and teach across these pillars, producing cutting-edge research to create and improve domestic and global food policies, incubate and engineer innovative new technologies and entrepreneurial spirit and lead critical conversations about the impact of food on the human race.

A founding gift from Andrés made the Global Food Institute possible, and the institute’s work will be powered by philanthropy and supported by partnerships with organizations, companies, foundations, and individuals. A significant contribution from the Nelson A. and Michele M. Carbonell Family Foundation will endow the Executive Director position. The Rockefeller Foundation has also committed financial support for the Global Food Institute.

 

The Global Food Institute (GFI), which is not to be confused with the think tank Good Food Institute (which also goes by the acronym GFI), held a launch event on May 23. 

A search for the executive director of the Global Food Institute will commence this summer.

Here is more about GFI from the Washington Post.

Fun fact: There are other think tanks devoted to food.  For example, there is an entity called Food Tank, which calls itself a "think tank for food."  Food Tank says it's a "research and advocacy nonprofit organization devoted to storytelling that highlights how food and agriculture can be the solution to some of our most pressing environmental and social problems."

Republican Think Tanks Gearing Up for 2024

Here is more from FP:

The [Mike] Pence-backed nonprofit Advancing American Freedom released a legislative agenda that calls for canceling Chinese treasury bill holdings as COVID-19 restitution to the families of victims, accelerating the U.S. nuclear program, and advocating more tree trade, a genuinely lonely position on both sides of the aisle these days.

[The Heritage Foundation's] Project 2025 has launched an online questionnaire, asking would-be conservative wonks in a Republican  to explain their political philosophy, who influenced it, and asking them a series of questions, including whether the United Nations should have authority over sovereign countries, and whether the U.S. president "should be able to advance his/her agenda through the bureaucracy without hinderance [sic] from unelected federal officials."

Another conservative think tank to watch for potential 2024 GOP administration picks is the Hudson Institute, which seems to have effectively struck a balance between the MAGA and the more traditional wings of the Republican party with its own cast of conservative foreign policy heavyweights.

 

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on the Heritage Foundation's plans to staff a Republican administration in 2024.

How China has Infiltrated US Think Tanks

Here are some think tank-related excerpts from the book Spies and Lies by Alex Joske, the youngest-ever analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI):

• America's think tanks have long been of interest to Chinese intelligence agencies.  Numerous spies from both the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) have held posts as visiting scholars in DC think tanks with varying degrees of transparency and awareness about their backgrounds.  Even before the MSS was created, Chinese intelligence analysts were compiling open-source studies of influential think tanks in the Reagan era.

• To many scholars and policymakers, the think tank China Reform Forum brings to mind dreams of change and liberalism to China.  Led by Zheng Bijian, the think tank touted unmatched access to China's leadership, superior pedigree through its affiliation with the Party's highest training academy, and a track record of policy influence.  It was cocaine for China watchers from Washington to Tokyo and Paris, manufactured in Beijing by the MSS.
  

• Other think tanks envied the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's unusual connections to Beijing.  After several years of collaboration with China Reform Forum, Carnegie could now reveal it had inked a deal to deepen that partnership and set up Carnegie's first Beijing office within the premises of China Reform Forum.  It was the first American think tank with a permanent presence in Beijing.  Carnegie thought it was expanding its influence within China, blind to the fact that it was taking part in an MSS influence operation.

• The Carnegie Endowment was far from the only American think tank that unwittingly wrapped itself up in the MSS's influence operations.  Two China representatives for the Asia Society were named as members of China Reform Forum's council.  Washington, DC's Center for Strategic and International Studies was often a host for visiting China Reform Forum delegations, as was the Brookings Institution.

• MSS quickly homed in on RAND Corporation as a priority for influence and espionage operations.  It surely helped that RAND is headquartered in California, the state with the most mature MSS networks.  Through China Reform Forum, RAND also had some of the strongest and longest-running ties to the MSS of any American institution.  RAND continued to help China Reform Forum access the United States even after it was warned that the group was a MSS front.

• Like every other major American foreign policy institution, Brookings had already been engaging with China Reform Forum, hosting Zheng Bijian and the MSS as they tested out the "peaceful rise" theory on its target audience.  Brookings chairman John L. Thornton unwittingly fell into the sights of an MSS influence operation.

• Nicolas Berggruen's Berggruen Institute helps connect the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy (CIIDS) to global elites and is key to its success.

• China Institute of Strategy and Management (CISM) started its existence as the internal think tank of the PLA's Academy of Military Science (AMS).

• The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) was originally established to give Chinese intelligence a channel for engaging internationally, and it actively helps the rest of the MSS target and recruit foreigners.  It holds dialogues and conferences with think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

• Maurice Greenberg was a leading donor to American foreign policy think tanks and once threatened to pull funding from the Heritage Foundation after one of its analysts wrote a paper calling for tougher policies on China.
  

 

Here is a list that Think Tank Watch compiled of former Intelligence Community (IC) officials that now work at think tanks.

One of the most interesting facts from the book: Windsurfing was invented by one of RAND Corp.'s engineers.

Think Tank Quickies (#475)

• Brookings and staff union reach initial one-year agreement.
• GOP think tank wonks trying to get their party not to detonate the debt limit bomb. 
• CGD is not an "eat what you kill" think tank.
• NYT: There are military contractors and even analysts at think tanks who have some level of security clearance.
  
• Scottish Tory MSPs launch "think tank of sorts" at conference.
• Think tanks find out information about Chinese police stations in the US before FBI?
• Casey Michel: "Biden is letting think tanks and dodgy foreign funders get cozy again."
• Ember: "An independent energy think tank."
• Stephen Walt, a former think tanker, on how to succeed in the foreign policy blob.
  
• DJ Khaled spoke at MBS's personal think tank.
  

Leaked Docs Show Lockheed Martin CEO About to Join CFR Board

Here is more from the Eli Clifton, a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative-Journalist-at-Large at Responsible Statecraft:

Members of the Council on Foreign Relations are currently voting on a slate of ten board candidates put forth by the “Nominating and Governance Committee.” That slate includes what is arguably the world’s largest arms dealer, the chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, James Taiclet, according to a document circulated to CFR members and obtained by Responsible Statecraft.

The board of directors of CFR, a New York-based think tank that focuses on U.S. foreign policy and international relations, isn’t a stranger to embracing the weapons industry. CFR’s chairman is David Rubenstein, a co-founder and co-chairman of the private equity firm and defense-industry-focused Carlyle Group, and the board currently includes Raytheon board member Meghan L. O’Sullivan, and Frances Townsend, a director at Lenoardo Systems, a Virginia based weapons systems company. (CFR’s biography of Townsend omits any mention of her role at the weapons firm but Leonardo Systems lists her CFR board membership in her biography on their website.)

 

A list of CFR's current board members can be found here.

Susan Rice Will Not be Next President of Brookings Institution

Here is more from Politico:

Susan Rice has made it clear she’s not interested in becoming the Brookings Institution‘s next president, three people familiar with the situation told POLITICO’s Alex Ward and Daniel. Buzz spread throughout the think tank after the White House announced Rice was stepping down as the domestic policy adviser, leading to rumors that she might be a natural pick for the role. But she made clear to people in Brookings’ orbit that the board, which aims to make a decision in the summer, should consider other candidates. A Brookings spokesperson declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Rice said, “This is urban legend. No one involved with the search at Brookings has contacted Ambassador Rice about this opening.”

Ms. Amy Liu remains as Interim President of Brookings while the search continues.

Atlantic Council Says Its Scholar Possibly Poisoned by Russian Intelligence

This week the Atlantic Council said that John Herbst, Senior Director of the think tank's Eurasia Center, may have been poisoned by Russian intelligence officers.

Here is more from an Atlantic Council statement:

Though Ambassador Herbst has recovered to full health, in April 2021 he grew ill and experienced symptoms that could have been consistent with poisoning, including elevated levels of toxins in his blood. Medical professionals treated Ambassador Herbst effectively at the time but could not definitively conclude there was poisoning involved. 

The Atlantic Council worked with federal law enforcement on this matter, who later also took a blood sample from Ambassador Herbst, and the lab results failed to detect toxic compounds. “The health and safety of our staff is the highest priority,” said Frederick Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council. “We were in touch with authorities immediately at the time of Ambassador Herbst’s illness, but due to the results of the test we decided not to make the incident public.” 

Ambassador Herbst and the Eurasia Center, working alongside other colleagues at the Atlantic Council, have been among the leading voices in the United States analyzing and responding to Russia’s threats to the United States and Ukraine, including its ongoing war, and advocating for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and freedom. 

 

Herbst was US Ambassador to Ukraine from 2003-2006.  His think tank work can be found here.

Russia has previously made known its disdain for Atlantic Council, and back in 2019 it blacklisted the think tank, saying that the activities of the organization "pose a fundamental threat to the constitutional order and security" of Russia.

White House Stops Requesting Think Tank Dislosures of Foreign Funding

Here is more from The New Republic (TNR):

At some point over the past few years, the Biden administration revoked one of the few progressive policies that Trump-era officials implemented in the effort to bring greater transparency to foreign influence in Washington. The New Republic has learned that with little fanfare, and with even less explanation, the White House has stopped requesting that American think tanks disclose funding from foreign governments. “This is not the policy of the U.S. State Department,” an agency spokesperson said last month.

The policy initially emerged in 2020, when then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the State Department would finally request that think tanks “disclose prominently on their websites funding they receive from foreign governments, including state-owned or state-operated subsidiary entities.” As Pompeo continued, “The unique role of think tanks in the conduct of foreign affairs makes transparency regarding foreign funding more important than ever.” He added that State Department staff would “be mindful of whether disclosure has been made.”

 

TNR notes that a forthcoming report from the Human Rights Foundation will show how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has "perfected the art" of transforming US think tanks into lobbying vehicles.

AI Botches Think Tank Analysis

Here is more from the Washington Post, which asked Microsoft's Bing AI dozens of questions to evaluate the chatbot's answers and sources:

Another problem suggested by our results: When the AI chooses a source, is it adequately understanding what it has to say? In a different answer to that same question about immigrants, Bing cited the Brookings Institution. However, Bing’s AI wrote that Brookings said immigrants may “affect social cohesion or national identity” and push down wages for native-born workers — a claim Brookings never made.

“We are flattered that chatbots like Brookings content, but the response is not accurate,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology at Brookings. He said Bing not only failed to adequately summarize that one article, but it also missed the organization’s more recent writing on the topic.

Microsoft told us it couldn’t reproduce that result. “After consulting engineering, we believe you encountered a bug with this answer,” Manfre said.

 

The newspaper concluded that nearly 1 in 10 answers/sources were inadequate or inaccurate.

Think Tank Quickies (#474)

• The McCain Institute announced Politico and CBS as its media partners for its 2023 Sedona Forum.
  
• Open Secrets: "One of the main issues tracking money that's funding think tanks is there's no legal requirement for them to disclose their donors."
• Jason Greenblatt, who served in the Trump Administration, has joined the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs as a senior director for Arab-Israel diplomacy.
• The US Global Leadership Coalition has announced the creation of the Conservative Foreign Policy Study Group, which consists of a group of conservative foreign policy and national security experts who served in the Trump Administration.
• The Washington Policy Center has hired state Rep. Chris Corry (R-Yakima) as the new director of the Center for Government Reform.
• New RAND report examines where and how the US, China, and Russia are likely to be competing for influence. 
• Peruvian government is lobbying think tanks.
  
• Overton analyzes the think tanks that publish the most on the topic of computer security.
  
• China's "official think tanks to watch," via Cheng Li.
• Event a Chatham House: The role of think tanks amid political uncertainty.
  

Beijing Curtails Overseas Access to Chinese Data After Reading US Think Tank Reports

Here is more from the Wall Street Journal: 

A recent campaign to restrict overseas access to China-based data sources was partly triggered by a drumbeat of U.S. think tank reports on sensitive Chinese practices that alarmed Beijing, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Increasingly worried about perceived Western threats, Beijing in recent weeks expanded an anti-espionage law and stepped up pressure on foreign companies specializing in collecting information, such as auditors, management consultants and law firms. In addition, access to Chinese databases including Shanghai-based Wind Information has tightened for foreign think tanks, research firms and other nonfinancial entities.

The wider scope of the campaign is intended to ensure the party-state’s control over narratives about China. The part of it focused on restricting overseas access to databases began in earnest after some reports based on publicly available information set off alarms among senior Chinese officials, according to the people with knowledge of the matter.

The reports, these people said, included analyses written by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University and the Center for a New American Security, co-founded by Kurt Campbell, the White House’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific.

 

The article notes that one of the think tank reports that got Chinese officials' attention is a CSET policy brief published in June 2022 entitled "Silicon Twist: Managing the Chinese Military's Access to AI Chips."  Another CSET report that got their attention was one called "The Chinese Talent Program Tracker." 

The article also notes that China cut off the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) access to Chinese data provider Wind Information.

Bastian Giegerich Named as Next Director-General of IISS

Here is more from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS):

The Board of Trustees of The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), chaired by Bill Emmott, is delighted to announce that following a global search it has appointed Dr Bastian Giegerich as the next Director-General and Chief Executive of the IISS. Dr Giegerich will assume the role on 1 October 2023, in succession to Dr John Chipman CMG who will move to a newly created part-time post as Executive Chairman of the IISS.

Dr Bastian Giegerich has served as the Director of the Defence and Military Analysis Programme (DMAP) at the Institute since 2015. In this role he has overseen the rapid expansion of DMAP's research output and corporate advisory services, and the development of the Military Balance+ database. In 2021, alongside his DMAP role, Dr Giegerich served as Interim Executive Director of IISS-Europe to establish the new IISS office in Berlin. From 2010 to 2015 he held senior research and policy roles in the Federal Ministry of Defence of Germany. He is the author and editor of several IISS Adelphi books and IISS Strategic Dossiers and holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE). He first joined the IISS in 2005 on a post-doctoral Fellowship funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, working on European security and defence matters.

 

IISS announced the search for a new director-general of the think tank in January 2023.

UK Getting New China-Focused Think Tank

Here is more from Politico:

The China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI), set to launch on May 10 at an event in the U.K. House of Lords, aims to focus the debate on China around the risks and opportunities of its global rise, and away from the split between China hawks and Golden Era supporters, its Deputy Director Andrew Yeh said.

Recent years have seen a host of advocacy groups flood the zone in Westminster. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and Hong Kong Watch have made real inroads. But Yeh, a co-founder of Labour Friends of Taiwan, says CSRI will aim to focus on research and briefings.

 

In terms of funding, CSRI is reportedly targeting grant-making organizations funding research into foreign policy as well as private donations.

ChatGPT Explains What a Think Tank Is To a 3-Year-Old

Think Tank Watch asked ChatGPT to explain what a think tank is to a three-year-old.  Here is what it came up with:

Okay, imagine you have a big box of toys that you like to play with. Now, imagine if you and your friends had a special place where you could go to think about new games to play with your toys. That special place is called a think tank!

In the think tank, grown-ups get together to think about big ideas and try to come up with ways to make things better. They might talk about things like how to make schools better, how to make people healthier, or how to make the environment cleaner.

Just like how you and your friends use your imaginations to come up with new games to play, the people in a think tank use their imaginations and ideas to come up with new ways to help the world.

While ChatGPT thought a 3-year-old working at a think tank was way too young, it did suggest a hypothetical think tank that could be designed for them: "Playtime and Learning Ideas Group," a think tank focused on finding fun ways for children to learn and play.

Think Tank Quickies (#473)

• Bipartisan Policy Center hosted a ceremony to present its Patriot Award to former President George W. Bush at National Harbor, Maryland. 
• Elbridge Colby, a former fellow at CNAS and founder a the Marathon Initiative think tank, is close to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
  
• Former US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings now heads think tank Texas 2036.
• Israeli, Ethiopian think tanks sign national security MOU.
• Texas taps think tanks as co-counsel in Biden lawsuits.
• Kazakhstan's leading think tank outlines its achievements for its 30-year anniversary.
• Third Way President Jonathan Cowan, MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting and Center for American Progress Action Fund CEO Patrick Gaspard team up for a fiery op-ed in WaPo to rail against No Labels' effort to build a unity ticket for the 2024 election. 
• The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank and lobbying group, drafted state legislation to strip child workplace protections.
  
• Think tanker quits career to join pronatalism movement.
  
• Book flashback: "The Shadow Government: The Government's Multi-billion-dollar Giveaway of its Decision-making Powers to Private Management Consultants, 'Experts,' and Think Tanks."
  

Russia Blocks Western Think Tanks

Here is more from Canada's Global News:

The March edition of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute magazine, Inside Policy, called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine criminal, unprovoked, unjustifiable, and aggressive.

An Ottawa-based think tank made up of academics, activists and former diplomats and politicians, the MLI has been a leading voice against the Russian war in Ukraine.

Two weeks ago, President Vladimir Putin’s government hit back: it blocked the MLI website in Russia and ordered the company that hosts it to shut it down.

 

Russia has reportedly taken the same action against the US's Wilson Center and Britain's Chatham House. 

MLI was blacklisted by Russia in 2022, along with senior fellows such as Marcus Kolga, Sarah Teich and Shuvaloy Majumdar.  Russia blacklisted Chatham House the same year.

The Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund have also been blacklisted by Russia, and so has the Jamestown Foundation.

In 2021, China sanctioned the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and several scholars, and China recently sanctioned the Hudson Institute and its leadership. 

Chinas has also been blocking Western think tank websites, such as the one from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Heritage Foundation Making Plans to Staff a Republican Administration in 2025

The Heritage Foundation continues to make plans to staff a potential Republican administration in 2025. 

Here is more from the New York Times:

Think of it as a right-wing LinkedIn. This so-called Project 2025 — part of a $22 million presidential transition operation at a scale never attempted before in conservative politics — is being led by the Heritage Foundation, a group that has been staffing Republican administrations since the Reagan era.

Heritage usually compiles its own personnel lists, and spends far less doing so. But for this election, after conservatives and Mr. Trump himself decried what they viewed as terrible staffing decisions made during his administration, more than 50 conservative groups have temporarily set aside rivalries to team up with Heritage on the project, set to start Friday.

They have already identified several thousand potential recruits and have set a goal of having up to 20,000 potential administration officials in their database by the end of 2024, according to Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage. Heritage has contracted the technology company Oracle to build a secure personnel database, Dr. Roberts said.

The key people involved with the Heritage-led database served in the former president’s administration. They include James Bacon, a Trump loyalist who worked in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel under one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted aides, John McEntee. In the final year of the Trump administration, Mr. Bacon helped Mr. McEntee overhaul the government’s hiring process. They developed a questionnaire to vet government employees’ loyalty to Mr. Trump and his “America First” agenda.

 

The newspaper says that the Heritage Foundation and its partners have already briefed former President Donald Trump as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates on their efforts.

It also notes that the Dennis Kirk, a former Trump Administration lawyer who was involved with the adoption of "Schedule F," a plan that would give the president the power to terminate and replace as many as 50,000 career government officials who served in roles that influenced federal policies, is now employed at Heritage and working on Project 2025.

Here is more from Government Executive.

Update: Mr. John McEntee, who was director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump Administration, has joined the Heritage Foundation's 2025 Presidential Transition Project as a senior adviser.

Japan Financed Lt. Gen. McMaster's Salary at Hudson to the Tune of $250k/Year

Additional details have come out about Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster's pay at the Hudson Institute, where he is the Japan Chair.  Here is more from the Washington Post:

The Japanese government has also financed the $250,000 annual salary for retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to work for the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank, records show. McMaster received federal approval to take the job in 2019, a year after he stepped down as Trump’s White House national security adviser.

According to McMaster’s application, the Japanese Foreign Ministry provided a $500,000 grant to the Hudson Institute so he could become the new chair of its Japan program. McMaster also reported that the Japanese government was considering giving the think tank a second $500,000 grant.

 

That annual salary easily puts McMaster in the top 10 at the think tank in terms of pay, with only a handful of top executives and scholars making more (including the president, COO, senior vice president, and a couple senior fellows).

Here is a 2019 Think Tank Watch piece on the Japanese government's funding of Japan chairs at various think tanks.

Heritage Foundation Retreats from Free-Market Capitalism?

Here is more from Business Insider:

Conservatism used to be synonymous with free markets. Maybe not for much longer.

The Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank known for its pro-business allegiances — released a report Tuesday written by Alexander Salter, an economist at Texas Tech University, flirting with whether the US government should protect workers from free markets.

Conservatives have long argued that the government should not tax, regulate, or subsidize industry because consumers are better off when companies are forced to compete for their dollars. However, the consequences of globalization for American manufacturing have caused many conservatives to reconsider the need for government intervention. Heritage, once the center of free-market conservatism, is now at this very crossroads.

With Tuesday's report, however, Heritage has moved away from its penchant for unfettered markets. 

Where markets generate wealth but harm families, communities, and the nation, "Combating monopolies, redistributing income, and even guiding production in essential industries are all valid public policy options," the report said.

 

In other Heritage Foundation news, the think tank has offered Tucker Carlson a job.

Tucker Carlson Gets Job Offer from Heritage Foundation

Mr. Tucker Carlson, who was just fired from Fox News, has already been offered a job from the Heritage Foundation.

Here is more from the Washington Times:

As long as the Heritage Foundation is around, Tucker Carlson need not worry about unemployment benefits.

The same day the popular prime-time host parted ways with Fox News, the conservative think tank’s president offered him a job.

Kevin Roberts told the Daily Signal, Heritage's news site, that he was “stunned to hear the news today.”

“To the man himself, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there will always be a home here for you, Tucker,” Mr. Roberts said.

 

Carlson is close to the conservative think tank, and just gave a speech at Heritage's 50th anniversary celebration on Saturday.  The full speech can be found here.

Think Tank Quickies (#472)

• Think tank: World risks descending into climate doom loop.
  
• How Kevin Roberts flipped the script at the Heritage Foundation.
• Sasakawa Peace Foundation conducts tabletop wargame over a 2026 Taiwan war.
• Ghost experts, non-existent think tanks fueling India's disinformation drive.
• United States Studies Centre hosts Australian cast of Hamilton.
• AEI gets funding from both Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman.
• Loren Thompson, a Forbes columnist and COO of the  Lexington Institute, unabashedly discloses his think tank’s funders within articles that mention them.
• New Asia Society initiative to jumpstart anti-cancer collaboration between the US and China could be "the new ping pong diplomacy" helping to stabilize the bilateral relationship. 
• RAND Corp. is "resolutely centrist."
  
• Pic: Think Tank Tattoo.
  

US House Asks CNAS to Organize Taiwan Wargame

Here is more from Politico:

It’s 2027. Taiwan’s leadership is considering declaring itself an independent country. Chinese paramount leader XI JINPING, angered by the major shift, chooses to launch an invasion of the democratic, self-governing island to force unification. How will the United States respond?

That’s what Republican and Democratic members of the House China Committee will decide tomorrow night during a tabletop exercise organized by the Center for a New American Security think tank. Starting at 7 p.m., the lawmakers will act as National Security Council advisers, deciding the best military, diplomatic and economic courses to take against China. CNAS’ BECCA WASSER and ANDREW METRICK will act as Beijing, aiming to thwart the panel members’ designs from inside the House Ways and Means Committee room. A move by either side will represent three days of the conflict.

All this is happening because Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.), the committee chair, believes that TTXs — as tabletops are abbreviated — are as instructive for policy- and lawmakers as they are for military personnel. In March, he took part in a Taiwan-focused wargame for House Republicans in Orlando and has written about why elected officials should participate in more wargames.

 

Semafor reported that it was an open-source, unclassified wargame.  The Hill reported that the wargame lasted around two hours.

Are Chinese Scholars Being Cut Off From US Think Tanks

Think Tank Watch has learned that a number of US think tanks are increasingly cautious about hiring Chinese citizens amid growing US-China competition and fears of potential spying.

The fear and caution is more publicly known in the world of academia, which has seen a US-China bifurcation in talent and knowledge.

Here is more from The Economist:

In 2018 some 20,000 Chinese were granted research visas. In 2022 fewer than 4,000 were.

With their access dwindling, foreign scholars have come to rely more on online databases. But these are increasingly unreliable. An online portal called China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) contains some 95% of Chinese academic articles as well as a host of other documents. On April 1st CNKI suspended foreign access to some of its databases.

Other online resources relied on by scholars are shrinking, too. China Judgments Online, a database of legal cases, opened in 2013. At the time it was an unprecedented window onto how justice works in China. In the past two years millions of cases have vanished from its archive.

Faced with these challenges, some China watchers are returning to methods of the cold-war era. A research institute called the Centre for Strategic Translation was set up in America last year by the American Governance Foundation, an NGO. Its stated aim is to help scholars and others by translating and explaining official Chinese documents.

 

A number of other efforts are being made to "understand" each other.

In 2022, for example, the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) established Interpret: China, a site meant to help scholars and policymakers better understand China through translation and analysis of primary source material.  It was started with the support of the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Interpret: China is co-directed by Jude Blanchette, CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, and Seth Jones, Senior Vice President and Director of the CSIS International Security Program, supported by Lily McElwee, Fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies. Alexandra Chopenko oversees program management. 

Meanwhile, a new FP piece notes that a breakdown in US-China university exchanges is threatening understanding and collaborative research.

In 2019, the FBI urged universities to monitor some Chinese students and scholars in the US.

Billionaire with Deep Ties to Conservative Think Tanks Feted Supreme Court Justice

Here is more from ProPublica:

For more than two decades, [Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas] has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from [Dallas businessman Harlan Crow] without disclosing them, documents and interviews show.

During just one trip in July 2017, Thomas’ fellow guests included executives at Verizon and PricewaterhouseCoopers, major Republican donors and one of the leaders of the American Enterprise Institute, a pro-business conservative think tank, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. 

Crow has deep connections in conservative politics. The heir to a real estate fortune, Crow oversees his family’s business empire and recently named Marxism as his greatest fear. He was an early patron of the powerful anti-tax group Club for Growth and has been on the board of AEI for over 25 years. He also sits on the board of the Hoover Institution, another conservative think tank.

Crow has long supported efforts to move the judiciary to the right. He has donated to the Federalist Society and given millions of dollars to groups dedicated to tort reform and conservative jurisprudence. AEI and the Hoover Institution publish scholarship advancing conservative legal theories, and fellows at the think tanks occasionally file amicus briefs with the Supreme Court.

 

Harlan Crow joined AEI's board of trustees in 1996, the same year that former vice president Dick Cheney joined the board. 

His wife Kathy Crow is on the board of trustees of the think tank Manhattan Institute.

Think Tank Quickies (#471)

• Recent hearing offers case study in how Emirati and Bahraini funding has become omnipresent at major foreign policy think tanks, and reveals the low standards for disclosures of potential conflicts of interest held by House committees and their witnesses.
  
• Heritage Foundation hosting event on crime in DC, the home a hundreds of think tanks.
  
• A think tank created by a Palantir co-founder is behind a slew of bills criminalizing homeless encampments. 
• A Michigan-based think tank sued the state's teachers union for misusing pandemic relief funds - and won.
• TikTok execs briefing British think tanks.
• Palantir: "Guidance around ‘trustworthy AI’ produced by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is virtually indistinguishable from frameworks published by major consultancy firms and think-tank." 
• President Biden's National Cybersecurity Strategy launched at CSIS.
  
• 120 top Russian think tanks publishing in Russian, and 25 in English. 
• New Glenn Diesen book: "The Think Tank Racket."
  
• Pic: Writing a think tank piece vs. publishing a think tank piece.
  

China Sanctions Hudson Institute and Its Leadership

Here is more from The Independent:

China has imposed a fresh tranche of sanctions against the US in retaliation against House speaker Kevin McCarthy's meeting with the Taiwanese president.

The measures announced on Friday apply to Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank which hosted Ms Tsai in New York and presented her with a leadership award.

The ministry also sanctioned Sarah May Stern, chair of the Hudson Institute board of directors; John P Walters, the institute's director; John Heubusch, former executive director of the Reagan Foundation, and Joanne M Drake, the foundation's chief administrator.

Taipei- based think-tank Prospect Foundation and Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, a multinational alliance that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) co-founded in 1993, were also sanctioned by China for advocating “Taiwan independence”, Xinhua reported.

 

Here is more about the award that Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen received from the Hudson Institute. 

This is not the first time that a think tank has been sanctioned.  In 2021, for example, China sanctioned Berlin-based think tank Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).

In response to the sanctions on MERICS, scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a statement denouncing the sanctions, a move that apparently led China to block CSIS's website.

IRS Working with New America on Free Tax-Filing System

Here is more from Fedscoop:

The Internal Revenue Service is working with technology public policy nonprofit New America to study the feasibility of establishing a digital, IRS-operated “direct file” tax return system.

The nonprofit is assisting the agency with the report along with Loyola Law School Associate Professor of Law Ariel Jurow-Kleiman, according to a New America spokesperson.

IRS’s e-file feasibility study was mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which stipulated that the agency engage independent third parties to study new options for a free, online direct tax-filing system.

New America spokesperson Tara Moulson said: “To assist the IRS with this work and assessment, the agency selected New America, a strictly non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to public problem solving with expertise in technological change, the tax code, and the taxpayer experience of everyday Americans.”

 

Republicans have attacked the fact that left-leaning New America is conducting the study, saying it doesn't fit the requirement of an objective group to undertake the study.

New America is a think tank founded in 1999 by Ted Halstead, Sherle Schwenninger, Michael Lind, and Walter Russell Mead.

Taiwanese President Receives Hudson Institue Award

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was presented with the Hudson Institute's Global Leadership Award at an event in New York City.

The award is presented to "exceptional individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership in service of the principles at the core of Hudson's mission," according to the Washington, DC-based think tank.

Hudson reportedly barred media from attending the event, in which she gave a speech.  A summary of her remarks can be found here.

In 2020 she spoke at a virtual gala held by the Hudson Institute, which receives funding from the Taiwanese government.

Trump Using Think Tank Plans to Draw Up "Attack" on Mexico?

Here is more from Rolling Stone:

Donald Trump is asking for a plan to wage war in Mexico, and the Republican Party is eager to give it to him.

As he campaigns for a second White House term, Trump has been asking policy advisers for a range of military options aimed at taking on Mexican drug cartels, including strikes that are not sanctioned by Mexico’s government, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

“‘Attacking Mexico,’ or whatever you’d like to call it, is something that President Trump has said he wants ‘battle plans’ drawn for,” says one of the sources. “He’s complained about missed opportunities of his first term, and there are a lot of people around him who want fewer missed opportunities in a second Trump presidency.”

Trump lieutenants have briefed him on several options that include unilateral military strikes and troop deployments on a sovereign U.S. partner and neighbor, the sources say. One such proposal that Trump has been briefed on this year is an October white paper from the Center for Renewing America, an increasingly influential think tank staffed largely by Trumpist wonks, MAGA loyalists, and veterans of his administration.

 

Center for Renewing America (CRA) is a conservative think tank founded in 2021 by Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Trump Administration.

Vought was previously vice president for Heritage Action for America, the sister lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation.

Think Tank Quickies (#470)

• Lack of disclosure on de facto lobbying at think tanks has triggered a bipartisan reaction, says Luke Goldstein in the American Prospect.
• University of Southern California (USC) opens new campus in DC within a stone's throw of think tank row.
• David Trulio will be president and CEO of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
  
• Diplomatic Courier Global Affairs Media Network has named Lisa Gable chair of its World in 2050 think tank.
• Stanford names 12 Tech Ethics and Policy Summer Fellows, some of which will work at Washington think tanks.
  
• The Movement Advancement Project (MAP): "A think tank that supports LGBTQ rights."
• CFA Institute Research Foundation: "An investment think tank."
  
• The Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD): "An American Christian conservative think tank that promotes its views among mainline Protestant churches."
• Can this Israeli think tank push a reform compromise.
• Flashback to 2016 RAND report: A year-long war over Taiwan would reduce China's GDP by 25-35% and America's by 5-10%.