Wang Jisi (Chinese: 王缉思; pinyin: Wáng Jīsī) is a Chinese academic and international relations scholar. He currently serves as the president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University. He served as the Dean of Peking University's School of International Studies from 2005 to 2013 and has held the position of Peking University Boya Chair Professor since 2017.[1][2]
Wang Jisi | |
|---|---|
王缉思 | |
 Wang at the World Policy Conference in 2019 | |
| Born | Wang Jisi November 1948 (age 75–76) |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Education | Peking University (B.A., M.A.) |
| Alma mater | Affiliated High School of Peking University |
| Employer | Peking University |
Early life
editWang was born in Canton (now Guangzhou) in November 1948, but has spent most of his life in Beijing.[3] He graduated from the prestigious Affiliated High School of Peking University in 1968.
After finishing high school at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Wang was sent to the countryside to serve as a sent-down youth worker in Inner Mongolia. There, he spent seven years laboring in the East Ujimqin Banner. In 1975 he was reassigned to Henan, recruited as a laborer at the Sanmenxia Dam hydroelectric plant.[4]
In 1978, two years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Wang was admitted into the International Politics program at Peking University, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.[4][1]
Career
editWang taught at the Peking University's Department of International Politics from 1983 to 1991.[1] Wang was a visiting academic at Oxford University (1982–83), University of California, Berkeley (1984–85), University of Michigan (1990–91), and Claremont McKenna College (2001).[1]
From 1992 to 2005, Wang was Director of the Institute of American Studies, at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; he was invited to the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as endowed chair from 21 to 25 February and from 2 to 8 March 2002.[1][5] at what was then known as Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, within Nanyang Technological University.[6]
Wang was Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University from 2005 to 2013. He was the founding president of the university's Institute of International and Strategic Studies.[7]: 62 He was concurrently director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party from 2001 to 2009.[1]
From 2008 to 2016 he was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China.[1]
He was Global Scholar at Princeton University from 2011 to 2015, including 9 months at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.[1][8]
Wang was on the International Crisis Group Board of Trustees.[9] Wang has served on the board of directors of the nonprofit Teach For China.[10]
Wang has published numerous English articles in the fields of U.S. foreign policy, China’s foreign relations, Asian security, and global politics.[1][11] Writing in 2024, researcher Mark Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations describes Wang as "one of the most renowned international relations scholars in China and an expert on U.S.-China relations."[7]: 62
According to Alex Joske, Wang has been "closely associated with China's Ministry of State Security for decades", joining undercover MSS officers, including then-head of the MSS United States operations bureau Lin Di and a spy previously declared persona non grata for falsely posing as a journalist, on trips to Japan and the US. He also served as an early member of the China International Culture Exchange Center, a front run by the MSS' 12th Bureau.[12]
Research and policy positions
editIn the early 2000s, Wang coined the term "hot peace" to describe the nature of the China-United States relationship.[7]: 60 As of 2024, Wang describes the "hot peace" as having become "much hotter in many dimensions" including economic competition, cybersecurity, military activity in the South China Sea, and the potential hot spot of Taiwan.[7]: 60
Wang's analysis general focuses on the idea that the current international order is dissolving.[7]: 60 Rather than confronting the United States, Wang's view is that China should use this opportunity to develop relationships with countries that view themselves as ignored by the United States.[7]: 60 As of at least 2024, Wang's advice to Chinese policymakers is that they should avoid confrontation with the United States, manage the bilateral relationship carefully, and expand its international activities into less contentious areas.[7]: 60
Awards
editIn 2005 and 2012 Foreign Policy named Wang one of its Top 100 Global Thinkers.[1][13]
Publications
editReports
edit- Breaking the Ice: The Role of Scholarly Exchange in Stabilizing U.S.-China Relations, Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 7, 2023 (co-authored with Scott Kennedy)[14]
Articles
edit- Does China Prefer Harris or Trump? Foreign Affairs, August 1, 2024 (co-authored with Hu Ran and Zhao Jianwei)[15]
- America and China Are Not Yet in a Cold War, Foreign Affairs, November 23, 2023[16]
- America and China Need to Talk, Foreign Affairs, April 6, 2023 (co-authored with Scott Kennedy)[17]
- The Plot Against China, Foreign Affairs, June 22, 2021[18]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Wang Jisi - Distinguished Fellow". Asia Society. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
- ^ "Peking University School of International Studies official page". Archived from the original on 2010-09-11. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
- ^ a b "Who is Wang Jisi?". U.S.-China Perception Monitor. Retrieved 2023-05-08.
- ^ S. Rajaratnam Professorship in Strategic Studies S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, n.d.
- ^ About S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, n.d.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bachulska, Alicja; Leonard, Mark; Oertel, Janka (2 July 2024). The Idea of China: Chinese Thinkers on Power, Progress, and People (EPUB). Berlin, Germany: European Council on Foreign Relations. ISBN 978-1-916682-42-9. Archived from the original on 17 July 2024. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ Nick DiUlio Four new Global Scholars set to visit campus, September 16, 2010, Princeton University News
- ^ "Crisis Group's Board of Trustees". International Crisis Group. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015.
- ^ "美丽支教项目". www.tfchina.org. Archived from the original on July 9, 2011.
- ^ Wang Jisi (July–August 2021). "The Plot Against China? How Beijing Sees the New Washington Consensus". Foreign Affairs. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
- ^ Joske, Alex (2022). "The Revolving Door: Scholars and the MSS". Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World. Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books. pp. 139–140. ISBN 9781743797990.
At the same time, Wang has been closely associated with the MSS for decades. He became a member of the Social Investigation Bureau's CICEC front group in the early 1990s, joining its strange medley of scholars, artists and undercover officers, like future Minister of State Security Geng Huichang. Even before then, Wang was joining MSS officers on trips to Japan (including one who had previously been declared persona non grata while posing as a journalist) and the United States. As head of American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the early 1990s, Wang was a colleague of MSS US operations guru Lin Di, who covertly managed the academy's foreign exchanges for many years. In 1998, Lin, then operating as CICEC's secretary-general, accompanied Wang to workshops in Tokyo and Washington. In 2003, Wang would join Lin and other MSS officers, now acting as researchers in China Reform Forum, at a RAND Corporation conference. These were the same events Lin used as cover to rendezvous with his Californian agents. Wang also headed the Central Party School's Institute of International Strategic Studies at the peak of its deep collaboration with (MSS front) China Reform Forum.
- ^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. 26 November 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-11-30. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
- ^ Kennedy, Scott; Wang, Jisi (April 7, 2023). "Breaking the Ice: The Role of Scholarly Exchange in Stabilizing U.S.-China Relations". Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
- ^ Jisi, Wang; Ran, Hu; Jianwei, Zhao (2024-08-01). "Does China Prefer Harris or Trump?". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2024-09-22.
- ^ Jisi, Wang (2023-11-23). "America and China Are Not Yet in a Cold War". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2024-01-01.
- ^ Kennedy, Scott; Jisi, Wang (2023-04-06). "America and China Need to Talk". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2023-12-26.
- ^ Jisi, Wang (2021-06-22). "The Plot Against China?". Foreign Affairs. No. July/August 2021. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2024-01-01.