How to Develop Think Tank’s Independent Thoughts

Reporter Xie Xie

With transformation and development of Chinese economy and under complicated situations at home and abroad, public policy decision making should take interests of parties into consideration. New think tanks with Chinese characteristics are playing an important role in the reform which is deepened comprehensively and will promote the modernization process of national governance system and capacity.

In the aspect of shipping industry, though the research institutes of of fi cial nature have long been established,think tanks with their own ideology have yet to be formed. The core problem faced by the professional think tanks in the shipping industry is the independence of researches.

Cheng Siwei once said that think tanks should conduct feasibility researches in the six aspects: technical possibility; economically reasonable; legal permission;operability; attainable schedule; and can be accepted politically by most people.With the establishment of the socialist market economy system, issues for decision-making are of great diversity,complexity and comprehensiveness. Differentiations of social contradictions and interest bodies require diversified think tanks. Both think tanks within the system and those outside of the system are needed to cope with complicated and volatile economic society and the international situation. Diversified think tanks can provide more diversi fi ed references. It is the same for the think tanks in the shipping industry.

The independence of think tanks is brought and guaranteed by competition. In the past, the “sectioned”research institutes resulted in a relatively closed shipping consultancy market, and the competition and interactivity was rare between research institutes. Think tanks and researchers relied on government to a certain degree and can not adapt to the open market. They had no realization of the independence of their researches. In a diversi fi ed,open and competitive society, market competition could develop professional ability of think tanks, which may meet the requirements of government and be accepted by enterprises and the public. In this way, independent thought will be gradually developed. In addition, national scientific research system reform promotes the reform of shipping industry. Scientific research projects are managed by MOST rather than the Ministry of Transport.Open scientific research projects of shipping industry attract more scientific research institutions and think tanks to participate in decision-making, which in turn promotes the independence of think tanks.

Real independence is not just “independent research”.Transparent operation is necessary, including management, fund raising and research. Unprofitable first-rate think tanks in the Unite State and England publish financial statements and work statements on their websites. London’s Chatham House do not accept anonymous donation generally. Even if accepted, total amount should be less than 3% of annual income. Selfdiscipline makes think tank free from suspicions. Think tanks of shipping industry still can not follow suit.However, this is a starting point. By proposing new vision to the society, expressing neutral point of view,publishing research reports, insisting independence of researches during project applications and customer services, think tanks will be gradually accepted by society. Independence is not a slogan,but established through professional and neutral researches. At the same time, think tanks should be social instruments,which provide references to decision makers rather than reach agreements with decision makers; they give consideration to the public rather than cater to populism.

In countries where ideology production mechanism is developed , “for business”, “for academy” and “for policy” are three distinguished functions of consulting companies, academic institutions and modern think tanks.

The development of modern think tanks with Chinese characteristics should avoid the “opposition against the government” due to misunderstanding of “independence”and also the tendency of catering just for the purpose of introducing policies.