About Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies

Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies

The Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies (RDCY, 中国人民大学重阳金融研究院) is a think tank at Renmin University of China in Beijing, established on 19 January 2013. It is the main programme of an education fund created by a RMB 200 million donation from Shanghai Chongyang Investment Group, chaired by Renmin alumnus Qiu Guogen. Describing itself as a new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics, RDCY researches financial development, global governance, great-power relations, macroeconomic policy and eco-finance. It has invited more than 90 senior fellows — former politicians, bankers and scholars from over 10 countries — and maintains cooperation mechanisms with think tanks in more than 40 countries. Its executive dean is Wang Wen. RDCY is best known internationally for its role as a joint coordinating think tank for the Think Tank 20 (T20) during China's 2016 G20 presidency.

Establishment on 19 January 2013 and the Chongyang Donation

RDCY was established on 19 January 2013 at Renmin University of China. Its own introduction states that it is the main funding programme operated through an education fund that Shanghai Chongyang Investment Group Co., Ltd. donated to Renmin University to establish. The donation was RMB 200 million — about US$29.6 million — from Qiu Guogen, a graduate of Renmin University and chairman of the Shanghai-based private equity firm Chongyang Investment Group. The institute was thus jointly created by a leading Chinese university and a private investment group, an unusual funding model among Chinese think tanks, most of which are financed directly by ministries, academies or universities. Qiu Guogen sits among the institute's executive figures alongside Renmin's leadership, and the Chongyang name — shared by the donor firm and the institute — marks that founding partnership in the institute's identity.

Mission: Advising the Country with Finance and Knowledge

RDCY's stated mission is to offer policy recommendations to the Chinese government — summarised in its materials as focusing on reality, advising the country and serving the people, and as "serving the country with finance and knowledge." Its goals include cultivating and providing a large batch of financial elites for China and constructing a modern think tank with Chinese characteristics. That phrase, adapted from the reform-era language associated with Deng Xiaoping, signals the institute's self-positioning: not an imported Western think tank model, but a Chinese institution designed to feed expertise into national policy. Its research focus follows from the mission — financial development first, but extending to global governance, great-power relations, macroeconomic policy and eco-finance, the fields in which a finance-centred institute at a major university could plausibly advise the state.

Structure: Seven Departments and Four Research Centres

As set out in its official introduction, RDCY consists of seven departments and operates four research centres: the Center for Eco-Financial Studies, the Global Governance Research Center, the China–US People-to-People Exchange Research Center, and the China–Russia People-to-People Exchange Research Center. Some earlier profiles, as of August 2022, listed three research centres, before the China–Russia centre was counted alongside the others. The structure reflects the institute's evolution: an eco-finance centre marking its early move into green finance; a global governance centre housing its G20 and multilateral work; and two people-to-people exchange centres, directed at the United States and Russia respectively, institutionalising the Track II dialogue work for which RDCY became known. Wang Wen serves not only as executive dean but also as executive director of the China–US centre.

Senior Fellows and International Cooperation

RDCY has invited more than 90 former politicians, bankers and preeminent scholars from over 10 countries as senior fellows; some accounts give a figure of over 96. Among its prestigious foreign fellows, Beijing Review noted more than 40 foreign thinkers, including former Slovenian President Danilo Türk. The institute says it has established a stable cooperation mechanism with major think tanks in more than 40 countries — an expansion from the nearly 30 countries cited in its earlier materials. This network is functional, not ceremonial: it underpinned RDCY's convening of G20 think tank meetings, its Silk Road think tank forums and its people-to-people exchanges, and it allowed a university institute founded in 2013 to act, within three years, as a coordinator of a global think tank process.

Leadership and Wang Wen

RDCY's executive dean is Wang Wen, a professor at Renmin University who also serves as dean of its School of Global Leadership in some listings and as executive director of the China–US People-to-People Exchange Research Center. Wang Wen is a former journalist and op-ed editor at Global Times who, according to biographical profiles, founded RDCY in 2013 after winning China's prestigious News Award, and rose to prominence through commentaries in the Party-affiliated Global Times. The institute's executive board has been co-chaired by Renmin figures including executive vice president Wang Liming and vice president Liu Yuanchun, with founding donor Qiu Guogen and School of Finance dean Zhuang Yumin among its executives; Chen Yulu, a former president of Renmin University, served as dean of RDCY in its early years. As of August 2022 its executive team included assistant deans Jia Jinjing, Zhuang Xuejiao and Yang Qingqing and deputy dean Zhou Luohua. Wang Wen remains the institute's public face, releasing its flagship G20 research and representing it in international media.

The T20 and China's 2016 G20 Presidency

RDCY's defining assignment came with China's G20 presidency. The institute was one of three official joint coordinating think tanks for the 2016 Think Tank 20 summit — alongside the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. G20 studies had been one of RDCY's primary research areas since its establishment in January 2013, when the field was less popular in China; its first G20 Think Tank Summit in August 2013 explored the post-crisis global governance system. The T20 China Kickoff Meeting was held at Renmin University on 14–15 December 2015, attended by over 400 guests from almost 100 top think tanks in more than 20 countries, and the 2016 T20 Summit concluded in Beijing on 30 July 2016, with around 500 experts attending and T20 policy recommendations presented to the G20 sherpas' process ahead of the Hangzhou Summit. At the kickoff, Wang Wen released RDCY's report "G20: From 2016 to 2030," arguing the G20 was transforming from a crisis-response mechanism into a long-term governance mechanism. RDCY also published China's first G20 think tank bluebook.

Green Finance and Eco-Finance Work

Through its Center for Eco-Financial Studies, RDCY positioned itself early in China's green finance debate, and it was appointed secretariat of the Green Finance Committee of the China Society for Finance and Banking, a body affiliated with the People's Bank of China. Institute materials describe RDCY as having set up the first eco-finance think tank in China, and green financing featured in the 2016 T20 agenda it helped coordinate, which recorded progress on promoting green financing and pushing the Paris Climate Agreement into effect. Eco-finance gave RDCY a policy niche distinct from conventional macroeconomic institutes: as China built its green finance system after 2015, the institute's centre and committee secretariat placed it inside the institutional machinery of that build-out.

Belt and Road and Global Governance Roles

RDCY is the executive director unit of the Belt and Road Think Tank Cooperation Alliance, a coalition created in 2015 by the International Department of the Communist Party Central Committee, the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and Fudan University. The Alliance counts more than 120 think tanks from Belt and Road countries as members, with officials from countries including Greece, Slovenia and Tanzania on its International Advisory Committee. RDCY also published the first Silk Road Economic Belt think tank bluebook and organised a Silk Road Economic Belt forum of think tanks from 12 countries. Research on great-power relations and global governance, conducted through its Global Governance Research Center, ties these convening roles together: the institute presents China's connectivity initiatives as questions of global governance, and itself as a platform where foreign think tanks engage with them.

Research in Scholarly and Policy Debate

External studies treat RDCY as a significant case in the literature on Chinese think tanks. The MERICS report "Whispering Advice, Roaring Praises," on the role of Chinese think tanks under Xi Jinping, used RDCY as a case study of what it called "domestic preachers" — set up in 2013 with a grant from Shanghai Chongyang Investment Group as a collaboration-oriented think tank at Renmin University. On Think Tanks and other directories list it as a university institute founded in 2013, led by Wang Wen, focused on reality-based policy advice. Critical profiles note Wang Wen's background in nationalistic commentary at Global Times, while the institute's own record — T20 coordination, the Green Finance Committee secretariat, the Belt and Road alliance role — documents functions few university think tanks anywhere perform. Both readings agree on the central fact: RDCY punches at national level.

Official Presence and Continuing Role

RDCY's official website is rdcy.ruc.edu.cn, where it posts its introduction, research programmes, insights and commentaries in Chinese and English, and maintains social media accounts under the RDCYINST handle. More than a decade after its founding, the institute remains what its founders designed: a privately endowed, university-based think tank that advises the Chinese government on finance and global governance, cultivates financial talent, and convenes foreign counterparts through its fellows network, its four research centres and its roles in the T20, green finance and Belt and Road think tank systems. Its trajectory — from a RMB 200 million donation in January 2013 to coordinating think tank for a G20 year in 2016 — is one of the clearest examples of the "new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics" that its mission statement promises.