| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Ruan Zongze Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
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Tell us a little about your institute, the Chinese Institute of International Studies.
This institute actually is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It has a nearly two hundred member staff. We try to cover the whole world. We have seven divisions of studies: American Studies Division, Asia-Pacific Studies Division, Western Europe Studies Division, a Middle East, Africa, South Asia Studies Division, and Russia and Eastern Europe Studies Division. Apart from this, we have another two called International Economics, or World Economy, I prefer to say. The other is International Politics, which is more comprehensive.
Does your institute prepare papers for the Foreign Ministry on issues that the government would be addressing in the short-term or the long-term?
Oh, yes, that's part of our job, actually. Of course, our research projects are sort of a mixture. On one hand, we have to prepare research reports which have policy recommendations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even beyond. The other part is that we can do research projects which we're interested in, and we actively contribute articles and papers to the newspaper and the magazines. Our institute staff very frequently receive interviews on television in China to, let's say, explain what they think, to join a debate about international politics today.
China is undergoing enormous changes in all spheres, especially economic. That must have major implications for its international relations and for the study of its international relations. So this must be an exciting time for your institute and people like yourself who are trying to figure out how China fits into the world.
You're absolutely right. I can't agree with you more on that. In the last twenty years, particularly, when Deng Xiaoping proposed a policy of opening up to the outside world, that really transformed the Chinese economy. And also, Chinese society today is under great transformation. People's mentality and people's attitudes have changed a great deal. And I think this is also one of the elements which also ... I mean, such a dynamic that China plays an increasingly important role in the world affairs.
In the past, when China was sort of in a chaos situation, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, we were very much occupied by our own agenda. Today, China is more or less looking to the outside world, and we want to be a very constructive player in world affairs. This has also made us, particularly as researchers of international politics, feel a lot of pressure to work very hard, because a lot of interaction has happened and the job is very demanding. And so lots of jobs, we must ... let's say, we prepare reports for the Foreign Ministry. We also want to join the public debate about the foreign policy of China. So it is a very exciting moment for us.
So to paraphrase what you're saying, there's new information requiring new understanding, but also, because you're moving toward a new democratic formula, public education about what you're learning and trying to analyze is also involved.
When you pause on a Chinese street today in Beijing or somewhere else, you can see lots of newsstands, which sell newspaper and magazines. Interestingly enough, these newspaper and magazines are already, let's say, put into the market by the central government. So the need to attract the readers -- if they carry the same story, the same article, they will die in such a competitive society. So they must have their independent views. This also provides a good opportunity for researchers such as us to write commentary for them, to write an article for them, which can explain your more independent view on the world affairs.
So there's a spillover into the policy debates and analysis that you're a part of.
Yes, I think so. And here I would like to clarify a point. Some people have the misunderstanding that China still has one voice. I don't think that any longer. We no longer have that sort of luxury anymore. Actually, there is a lot of debate in China, even about the foreign policy, about our policy towards those world affairs, because of the decentralization, just because of the transformation.
The other is that lots of expertise is coming out. In the past, we didn't have that sort of expertise. Now, in the past decades, many universities and think tanks have trained lots of experts, so that also can make this possible.
How important in all of this are academic exchanges with other parts of the world, both in terms of students' learning, but also in terms of senior academics like yourself?
I consider it very important. For China, from our perspective, we like to have friendly relations with other countries in the world, and, needless to say, with the United States. First of all, we should understand what the outside world thinks, and particularly important is how they look at China, what their expectations are, what their concerns about China are. Currently, it's even more important, because China is as they say a rising power, so many people were concerned. "What's your long-term plan? What are you going to do in the future, once you grow stronger?"
We must try to understand other peoples' concerns and their expectations so we can, let's say, do our job. We can increase our mutual trust with other countries to expand the common interest, the common ground, and reduce those differences. These can make China a constructive player in world affairs.
You've been abroad quit a bit. You've been posted in the embassy in London. How has that particular experience broadened your horizons as a scholar?
What impressed me very much in my experience working in London and also my official visits to the States is that we need a debate atmosphere. That's very important.
In China?
In China. And I'm very glad to say that we're starting to have this sort of atmosphere to make a policy, let's say, more accurate or whatever. China needs to debate before the actual policy is formulated. So it will be good for us, particularly in the academic level, to debate some of those big issues before they can be transformed into a policy of the government.
So because of all of these influences -- changes in China, new expertise, opening up of a competitive market and ideas, openness to the outside world, where you're learning different perspectives, and so on -- there's a real synergy, a dynamic for making it not a good idea to judge China on the basis of what it did in the past. Is that correct?
Oh, yes, I agree. And because China, as we just talked about, has undergone huge, enormous transformation -- of course, started by the economy -- but such transformation will definitely have a huge impact on people's way of thinking, their ideas. Of course, for those people who became rich, they may have more say, they may want to have a bigger voice on the public policy debate. What happened in China is making us feel very excited at this moment, because we can be part of this policy debate.
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