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Taiwan’s TECRO also supports work at several think tanks. In rare cases—because one usually excludes the other—US think tanks end up accepting funds from both Taiwan and mainland China sources.
Visa Access
Most American scholars consider travel to China an important element of their ability to do their job—attending conferences, participating in delegations, and undertaking independent research. Given this imperative, the issue of visa access is a central one. While most analysts receive single-entry professional exchange (F) visas, a few routinely receive one-year multiple-entry F visas, while some have ten-year tourist (L) visas. Others receive double-entry visas, if proof of specific invitations are produced. One US think-tank scholar, a Chinese national, travels to China on a Chinese passport. While ten-year multiple-entry tourist visas are, of course, optimal—there is also a serious potential downside: namely, that they are for “tourism,” and, according to Chinese law, professional activities are not permitted. One senior scholar who holds a ten-year tourist visa was recently visited and interrogated at his hotel in Beijing after several days of meetings with Chinese think tanks and universities.
Several think-tank analysts expressed the opinion that Chinese officials are now paying more attention to the writings of American think-tank analysts—not only books, articles, and op-eds, but also social media. This is done not only to become familiar with changing views but to catalog who is supportive and who is critical of China’s policies. One scholar believes that, as a result of a comment posted on Twitter, this individual was required to go to the Chinese embassy for an interview before being granted a visa. This had never happened in his previous decades of China-related travel. In another instance, Beijing attempted to enforce its sovereignty claims through the visa process, A visa was initially denied because an American scholar had stated that “Hong Kong” and “Taiwan” were places he had previously visited, instead of “Hong Kong SAR,” and “Taiwan, China.” Most of the scholars interviewed believe that the process of gaining a visa has become much more politicized and difficult in the past year or two, with much more scrutiny given to an applicant’s political views. Among those interviewed, only one think-tank scholar reported actually being denied a visa. (However, there have been reports of other think-tank analysts being rejected who
are reluctant to go public about their denials.) In addition, most of those interviewed observed that the Chinese embassy now often issues visas the day before or even the morning of departure, making the visa process laborious and nerve-racking.
Two interviewees reported that companies that specialize in expediting visa applications have indicated that their respective think tanks are on a blacklist that makes obtaining visas problematic. In one case, an interviewee related a case in which
Think Tanks
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