The Diplomat divided this paper into two parts and published them on  April17 and April 18. The websites for the published version are :

Part One,http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/the-problems-with-chinas-foreign-policy-bureaucracy/

Part Two, http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/how-to-fix-chinas-foreign-policy/

How should China’s foreign policy Making respond to OBOR Strategy？

By Xue  Li  and  Xu Yanzhuo

“One belt and one road” strategy(OBOR) implies that China has changed its Tianxia[1]governance lasted for thousands of years and raised waves of Chinese ripples(influence) in a peaceful way. The foreign policy featured by “keeping a low profile” is inevitably evolving in response to the diplomatic needs of “achieving something” and “proactive and enterprising, striving for achievements”. Against such background, how should China’s current foreign policy-making mechanism respond to these “Chinese ripples”? 

China’s foreign agenda will change significantly in the implementation of OBOR strategy.Not only the involved departments and related issues will greatly increase, but also the proactive affairs and fields will largely expand. However, as it is known that “foreign policies are often made with incomplete information”, chances of mistakes in further policy-making process will likely rise as well.

Since it is impossible to avoid policy-making mistakes, it is more realistic to expect reducing it through improving the collection and analysis of related information, strengthening the selection and summary of policy suggestion and enhancing the quality of policy-making.

The problems of China’s foreign policy decision-making mechanism

US has a well-developed foreign policy-making mechanism, where the governments (sometimes entrusted specialized agencies) are responsible to collect and analyze information and to give policy advice; while professional institutions (mainly think tanks) provide policy suggestions. National Security Council and Secretary of State will judge, select and sum up the numerous policy suggestions, then form and sometimes prioritize several plans for the president.

In contrast, China’s foreign policy-making mechanism has flaws in the following process, ranging from the collection and analysis of information, the selection and summary of policy suggestions to the decision making. Among these three, the second section has the largest gap with that of US, followed by the third process. As for the first one, the main difference lies in the competitiveness of researchers, rather than sharing information among different agencies.

In terms of information collection and analysis, each agency and its affiliated institutions have exclusive information in its own specialty (It is also the case in US). Policy suggestions have been made on the basis of its own interests or its leaders’ concerns (It is particularly the case in China). Competitive, independent and professional researchers in MOFA and IDCC are not sufficient with the fact that some of the talents have not been given full scope to their capabilities.

The professional institutions have separated from IDCC in 1970s and 1980s which led to the insufficient researching support, yet increasing number of foreign affairs along with IDCC’s resume of massive diplomacy (especially inter-party diplomacy).

At the same time, MOFA, to some extent, has a similar situation of insufficient researching institutions and specialists. It has three major research institutions, Department of Policy Planning (DPP), China Institute of International Studies(CIIS) and China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU). As for the DPP, although it shoulders responsibility of researching, it also plays a complementary role to Department of Regional Affairs and its specialists has made little commitments to research, because as it is known that “there is no ' trivial ' issue in diplomacy”, the limited number of personnel are busy at dealing with diplomatic affairs.

Comparing to DPP, CIIS and CFAU have a stronger researching faculty and often involved in various fieldwork assigned by MOFA. CIIS focuses on policy analysis and provides internal reports, but it only has a few dozen researching faculty and has less comprehensive influence than its counterpart CICIR. CFAU has engaged in both policy analysis and theoretical research with outstanding contribution to IR theory and methodology. However, their affiliation to MOFA has constrained these two institutions of providing comprehensive diplomatic policy suggestion, especially when the result may be against the interests of MOFA.

Being independent of MOFA, other professional research agencies have started to play their role through few prestigious scholars’ involvement into policy advice. However, those policy advices are often made on the basis of the scholar’s personal knowledge and experiences rather than empirical research projects. Even if it launched some entrusted projects, one the one hand, researchers can hardly have a deep thinking and analysis in such a limited time, sometimes the reports were given as a “quick response”, this phenomenon prevails in political studies. On the other hand, the client has a clear bias for some kinds of the researching result. Sometimes, the projects were only served as an academic endorsement for the argument of the client. It is often seen in economic studies and projects entrusted by local governments.

Regarding policy-making process, instead of few ordered proposals with clear features, the top leaders often make decision on the awareness of certain problems and the authorized research analysis following it, or large number of incomprehensive policy suggestions, or lobbying by certain departments and political elites. As a consequence, the authorized research often led to partial judgment, meanwhile, neither the leaders could make their choices among numerous suggestions, nor the lobbied policy may consider the national interests as a whole. In general, the policy under such progress is incoherent.

Nevertheless, the key reason lies in the lack of a “policy-suggestion selection agency” by which it means the department that is responsible for selecting, summarizing and judging all kinds of policy suggestions.

Generally, Office of Foreign Affairs of the CPC Central Committee could play this selection role, however, in practice, considering its status; it could only serve as an implementation agency. In contrast, Foreign Affairs Leading Group has high enough administrative level in ranking system and a broad representativeness, but as a non-permanent agency, it could not function regularly as policy selection and summary. As for the Policy Research Office of CPC Central Committee, whose responsibility is “entrusted policy design and related theoretical research”, could only partly share the selection work without fully engaging. Meanwhile, National Security Commission was expected to shoulder this task, yet in practice, it tends to focus on domestic affairs.

Additionally, the Foreign Minister’s administrative level is not high enough to select policy suggestions. In a party-led decision making system, the State Councilor, who is responsible for foreign affairs, serves as the top figure, yet is not one of the 25 Politburo members. Additionally, neither deputy Prime Minister is in charge of foreign affairs, nor are the top leaders. In China’s bureaucratic system, the State Councilor, who is responsible for foreign affairs, ranks out of top 30 with the fact that Foreign Minister enjoys an even lower administrative status. As a result, the MOFA degrades from “decision makers” to “policy implementers”. Similar situation happens to International Department and other foreign affairs agencies. Due to the fact that it lacks a systemic mechanism in policy making, in practice, the leader’s political status, administrative level and relationship with top leader all have an impact on decision-making. Member of the Political Bureau, the two military commanders and secretary of Commission for Political and Legal Affairs have a much more significant impact on decision making. Due to their occupational preference, they tend to adopt a tough approach where MOFA is unable to argue with. In the past few years, several ineffective diplomatic actions and even some events without notifying MOFA have happened against such background. 

China is committed to building a regional and global function mechanism, which inevitably requires the cooperation of related countries. In a peaceful era, inter-state cooperation relies on large amount of profit exchanges and mutual compromise, which is the major priority and agenda of MOFA and MOC. However, due to Foreign Minister’s limited influence, it is hard for him to provide tangible interests for profit exchanges and effective concession for compromise, hence to form policy suggestions to top leaders. It must be said that this is a major reason for China’s slow growth in providing regional and global public goods.

The logic of improving decision-making mechanism

China’s self-identity has evolved from “East Asian country” to “Eurasian country”, and then to “the heart of Asia” It is a returning awareness on its regional pattern. Although the Sinocentric hierarchical system reduxis neither impossible nor desirable, China’s leading role in contemporary international system is in sight. “Nations, big or small should be treated as equal” is one of the basic features in current international society. It is hard for nations to emerge through wars, like what had happened in history, and the peaceful rising is the most realistic choice. Hence, it requires China to reform and to innovate its concept, system and talent appointment.

In light of concept, China should get rid of the “victim grievance” and be confidence. The awareness of “lagging behind leaves one vulnerable to attacks” perhaps is normal, but it has already passed with the fact that currently no state is able to bully China. Putting forward the strategy of “new type of major power relations” indicates China’s confidence on great power relationship. On the other side, asa heart state in a rapidly developing continent, China is necessary to lead the peripheral countries for mutual development, in the condition that the surrounding countries would like to be driven by Beijing. Thus, China has to gain understanding and better trust from those countries.

It requires Beijing to have a political panorama and long-term perspective in its relationship with surrounding countries, especially small and medium states. Furthermore, China should put itself in other countries’ shoes and consider those countries’ concern and demands from Beijing. Even if it is impossible for China to fully fulfill their needs, the sympathy and understanding towards the situation could be help to deal with the tensions. In addition, Beijing should ease its domestic nationalism and cultivate great power tolerance of its citizens.

Regarding political system, it should balance the internal and external function of National Security Commission (NSC) and strengthen its control over external affairs. Since General Secretary, also serves as chairman of NSC, is in charge of domestic issues; it should appoint a member of Politburo as deputy chairman and deputy leader of Foreign Affairs Leading Group, who is responsible for foreign affairs. At the same time, Foreign Minister should be hold by vice premier who is also member of Politburo. In addition, the candidate of foreign minister should better be selected from non-diplomats; in this case, the minister could be expected to select policy suggestions. In support of the Deputy Chairman, it is also possible for the minister to select, summarize and order policy suggestions on major diplomatic events. In this way, it could largely improve the quality and effectiveness of top leader’s decision making process and the coherence of China’s foreign policy.It also enables China to provide more public goods in this region and even worldwide, further to play a leading role in regional order and global system.

In terms of talents selection, it is necessary to break the existing exclusive system in MOFA and to largely increase non-diplomats staff. In the long run, the solution lays in the separation between political appointees and civil servants which requires the coordination with other ministries. In the medium term, it at least can start the following two measures: to strengthen off-the-job training and to extend training terms, hence to increase their related knowledge and skills. Additionally, a much more effective way would be increase the number of “outsiders”, such as enlarging the proportion of non-diplomats in foreign policy Advisory Committee. (In the new elected members of the committee, only 6 out of 29 are non-diplomats),  strengthening the function of the committee and even considering to upgrade it to Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of National Security Commission. More importantly, it is necessary to appoint experienced specialists and scholars as departmental-level or even ministerial level officers who are inclusive into decision making agencies. In this aspect, Professor Wemang Huning’s experience should not be a special case, instead, after a transition period, it should become a new normal.