About China Institute of International Studies

China Institute of International Studies

The China Institute of International Studies (CIIS, Chinese: 中国国际问题研究院) is the think tank of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, based in Beijing. Directly affiliated with the ministry, it is a research institution devoted to international issues, and its own profile describes its work as research and analysis focusing primarily on medium- and long-term policy issues of strategic importance to China, particularly those concerning international politics and the world economy. That mandate — long horizons, strategic questions, and direct proximity to the foreign ministry — has defined the institute since the 1950s and distinguishes it from university departments, commercial consultancies and independent non-governmental think tanks elsewhere in this directory.

CIIS is also notable for its age. Founded in 1956, it was the first institution in Chinese history dedicated specifically to the study of international issues. Over nearly seven decades it has been reorganised, renamed, dissolved and revived, absorbed another State Council research body, and been designated a pilot institution for national high-end think tanks. Its researchers publish a long-running journal, staff eleven research departments, and support newer national-level centres devoted to the study of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and the Global Security Initiative.

Founding in 1956 and early history

CIIS was established on 24 November 1956. At the proposal of Zhang Wentian, Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, and with the approval of the State Council, it was created as the Institute of International Relations of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Contemporary accounts of its history stress the novelty of the step: no earlier Chinese institution had been dedicated specifically to international issues as a field of study in its own right. In 1958 the institute was separated from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and renamed simply the Institute of International Relations.

The institute did not survive the political upheavals of the following decade intact. It was dissolved during the Cultural Revolution, a period in which much of China's academic and research infrastructure was closed down. Its later revival therefore formed part of the broader rebuilding of Chinese policy research that accompanied the late 1970s.

Revival, renaming and expansion

In 1979 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally defined the revived institute's mission as conducting medium- and long-term, strategic, and policy-oriented research — a formulation that still captures the character of its work. In December 1986 it assumed the name China Institute of International Studies, the name under which it became known internationally.

A further expansion came in 1998, when the China Center for International Affairs, formerly a research institution of China's State Council, was incorporated into CIIS. The merger brought a State Council research body inside the foreign ministry's think tank and widened the institute's policy reach. In June 2014 the Office of the Central Institutional Organization Commission approved a change in the institute's Chinese name at academy level, from 研究所 to 研究院, while the English name, China Institute of International Studies, remained unchanged. In 2020 CIIS was designated as a pilot institution for the development of national high-end think tanks, placing it within the central programme to build a new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics.

Role as the foreign ministry's think tank

CIIS is directly administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China. Scholarship on Chinese think tanks describes it as deeply enmeshed within the Chinese party-state system and as the ministry's in-house think tank, catering to government demand for analysis and for track-two diplomacy — the unofficial, expert-level exchanges that run alongside formal diplomacy. Much of its research activity therefore remains outside public view, even though its experts publish commentaries, journal articles and public reports.

That position gives CIIS a particular function in China's foreign-policy system. It is close enough to the ministry to understand the questions policymakers are asking, while organised as a research institute able to study those questions over the medium and long term rather than within the daily cycle of diplomatic business. Its research focuses primarily on issues associated with global politics and economics, and its staff complement has been reported at around 100.

Research departments

According to its official profile, CIIS currently comprises eleven research departments. They are the Comprehensive Research Department of the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Centre; the Department for International and Strategic Studies; the Department for American Studies; the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies; the Department for European Studies; the Department for European-Central Asian Studies; the Department for Developing Countries Studies; the Department for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; the Department for World Economy and Development; the Department for World Peace and Security; and the Department for Global Governance and International Organizations. An editorial department for the journal International Studies sits alongside the research departments.

The structure maps closely onto the regional organisation of Chinese diplomacy itself, supplemented by functional departments for strategy, world economy, peace and security and global governance. Earlier descriptions of the institute listed fewer departments — seven in some accounts — reflecting the expansion and reorganisation of its research coverage over time, including the addition of work on global governance and on the Global Security Initiative.

Centres hosted at the institute

Alongside its departments, CIIS hosts several national-level research centres. Its official profile names the China Center for Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies, the China-Central and Eastern European Countries Global Partnership Center, and the Global Center for Mekong Studies (China Center). Earlier accounts also listed research centres on the European Union, the Middle East, the South Pacific, China's energy strategy, periphery security and world economy and security.

Two newer centres mark the institute's place in the diplomacy of the Xi Jinping era. In December 2019, with the approval of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Centre, with the support of CIIS; the centre opened at CIIS in July 2020, and CIIS president Xu Bu served as its secretary-general. In July 2024, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Center for Global Security Initiative Studies was established under the auspices of CIIS. Drawing on the institute's strengths as a national high-end think tank, the centre deepens theoretical research on the Global Security Initiative, promotes dialogue and exchanges, and expands cooperation under the initiative — the security framework President Xi Jinping first put forward at the Boao Forum for Asia in April 2022.

Publications

The institute's flagship publication is International Studies (国际问题研究), published in Chinese and English versions by its editorial office. The journal's contributors include CIIS researchers and independent foreign-affairs experts, and it has long served as a venue in which Chinese international-relations scholarship and policy analysis appear side by side. Scholarly accounts also describe a bimonthly journal, China International Studies, and the CIIS Report series: contributed by researchers at CIIS and published aperiodically, CIIS Report brings forward research papers on hot issues of international relations and on major aspects of China's diplomacy, published in both Chinese and English and downloadable from the institute's website.

In April 2026 CIIS held the launch event in Beijing for its first annual Report on the Global Security Situation, covering 2025. Wang Lixin, director-general of the foreign ministry's Department of Security Cooperation, delivered a keynote speech on the Global Security Initiative at the launch, and CIIS president Chen Bo introduced the report's main findings, noting the growing frequency and complexity of global security challenges. The report illustrates how the institute's newer security centre and its established publishing programme reinforce one another.

Leadership

The institute's presidents have been drawn from the senior ranks of Chinese diplomacy and international studies. Recorded holders of the post include Meng Yongqian in the founding period from 1956, and, in later decades, Wang Shu, Du Gong, Yang Chengxu, Song Mingjiang, Ma Zhengang and Su Ge. Xu Bu, a former ambassador, led the institute in the early 2020s and served as secretary-general of the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Center, commenting publicly in February 2023 on the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper released that month. On Think Tanks records Chen Bo as the institute's leader in 2024 and 2025, and CIIS itself identified Chen Bo as its president when she introduced the Report on the Global Security Situation (2025) in 2026.

International exchange and track-two diplomacy

International liaison is a built-in part of the institute's structure: it runs an office responsible for overseeing international liaisons, and academic studies of CIIS emphasise the track-two role it plays for the foreign ministry, hosting and joining expert dialogues with foreign counterparts. Organisations such as the Asia-Europe Foundation list CIIS among their partner research institutions, reflecting its presence in inter-regional expert networks. Its hosted centres — on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, on China-Central and Eastern European Countries partnership and on Mekong studies — similarly serve as platforms for exchange with the regions they study, connecting research on an area with direct contact with counterparts from that area.

Place among Chinese think tanks

Within China's crowded think-tank landscape, CIIS occupies a distinctive niche. The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations is affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences runs its own institutes, and newer non-governmental think tanks operate outside the ministerial system altogether. CIIS, by contrast, is the foreign ministry's own long-established research arm, with a history reaching back to 1956, a staff organised by region and function, and a publishing record anchored by International Studies. Its designation as a national high-end think tank pilot institution in 2020, and the creation under its roof of the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Centre and the Center for Global Security Initiative Studies, underline that the institute remains central to how China studies, explains and develops its foreign policy.

Access and official website

CIIS is headquartered in Beijing and its official website is ciis.org.cn. The site carries the institute's profile, its department and research-centre listings, news of events such as report launches, and access to its publications in Chinese and English. For readers of this directory, the China Institute of International Studies is recorded as a Beijing, China research institute and think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, founded in 1956 and specialising in international politics, the world economy and Chinese diplomacy.