Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies (RDCY) is a Chinese financial research think tank. It produces reports, videos, commentaries, and hosts events to facilitate research of China’s economy and recommend insights to Chinese government officials. ¹

The institute was jointly created in 2013 by the Renmin University of China and Shanghai-based private equity firm Chongyang Investment Group, Ltd. ² In addition to finance, the Institute researches and conducts projects on global governance, security studies, and environmentalism. It has established senior fellowships with a number of Chinese intellectuals as well as non-resident fellowships with foreign intellectuals, including Marxist journalist Vijay Prashad. ³

Background

The mission of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies is to “offer policy recommendations” to the Chinese government, “serving the country with finance and knowledge,” to “cultivate and provide a large batch of financial elites for China,” and to “construct a modern think-tank with Chinese characteristics,” a phrase adapted from former Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China Deng Xiaoping. ⁴

As of August 2022, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies was made up of seven departments and three research centers: the Center for Eco-Financial Studies, the Global Governance Research Center, and the Sino-US People-to-People Exchange Research Center. ⁵

Activities

In 2016, the Chinese government chose the Chongyang Institute to be the joint coordinating think tank for the T20 2016 Summit, a subdivision of the G20 summit. ⁶ Chongyang was appointed to be the secretariat of Green Finance Committee of the China Society of Finance and Banking, an annual conference affiliated with the People’s Bank of China. ^{7 8 9}

Chongyang Institute was named the executive director of the Belt and Road Think Tank Cooperation Alliance, ¹⁰ a coalition and conference created in 2015 by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Science, the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, and Fudan University. ¹¹ The Alliance has officials from Greece, Slovenia, Tanzania, and other countries serving on its International Advisory Committee and counts more than 120 think tanks from countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative international infrastructure project as members of its coalition. ¹²

Funding

Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies is the main program of an education fund backed by a 200,000,000 Renminbi (about $29,577,480) donation from Qiu Guogen, a graduate of Renmin University and the current chairman of Shanghai Chongyang Investment Group. ¹³

Leadership

Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies’ executive board is co-chaired by Wang Liming, the executive vice president of Renmin University, and Liu Yuanchun, vice president of Renmin University. Other executives include founding donor Qiu Guogen, the chairman of Shanghai Chongyang Investment Group, and Zhuang Yumin, the dean of the School of Finance of Renmin University. ¹⁴

As of August 2022, Chongyang’s executive team was comprised of executive dean Wang Wen, assistant deans Jia Jinjing, Zhuang Xuejiao, and Yang Qingqing, and deputy dean Zhou Luohua. ¹⁵ Wang Wen, a public intellectual, rose to fame from his commentaries in the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Global Times which were nationalistic in nature. ¹⁶

Chongyang Institute has more than ninety senior fellows including prominent politicians, financiers, and scholars from over 10 countries. ¹⁷ Marxist journalist and historian Vijay Prashad is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute. ¹⁸ Other non-resident fellows include Danilo Turk, former president of Slovenia; Essam Sharaf, former prime minister of Egypt; Paulo Portas, former Portuguese minister of foreign affairs; Martin Jacques, senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies of Cambridge University; John Kirton, University of Toronto professor and director of G8 & G20 Research Group; Jean-Guy Carrier, director of ICC Research Foundation; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, widow of Lyndon LaRouche and founder of the Schiller Institute; World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO) veteran Peter Koenig; Iranian professor Ali Akbar Velayati; Boris Guseletov, international advisor to the chairman of A Just Russia Party; and Johns Hopkins University professor Roger Leeds. ¹⁹

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