U.s. Think Tank On U.s. Foreign Policy

Think tanks are nonprofit independent institutions, which, with policy studies as their core tasks, aim at serving the government and the society directly or indirectly. American think tanks first emerged in the early beginning of the 20th century. Their evolution experienced 4 periods. American think tanks can be sorted into different categories. They can be classified into such three categories as conservative think tanks, libertarian think tanks and centrist think tanks according to their political tendencies. Compared with those in other countries, American think tanks are mainly featured with their strong impacts on the public policies.Having researched American main-stream think tanks' impacts on American policy toward China since 1960s, the libertarian think tanks' impacts on the Clinton Administration's policy on NATO expansion in the 1990s and the conservative think tanks' impacts on the Bush Administration's unilateral foreign policy, I find that the think tanks play an important role in the foreign policy making process by way of generating "new thinking" for senior government officials, providing policy options to the government, offering the institutional settings to the departing officials, providing a steady stream of experts to serve in incoming administrations and on congressional staffs, educating U.S. citizens about the nature of the world in which they live and bridging the government and the publics.Think tanks impose their impacts on American foreign policies mainly by ways of providing talent to the incoming administrations, forging a close relation with the senior officials and congressmen, providing experts to the president candidates for their campaign, providing roadmaps for action to the incoming administrations, exploiting the mass media and the pressure groups and holding seminars, publishing books or periodicals, etc.Think tanks can play an important role in American foreign policy making process due to American unique political culture, the separation of powers political system, the loose party system, the strong tradition of voluntary donation, the flourishing foundations, the unique multi-polar social structure, the complicated foreign policy making mechanism and the increasing American involvement of the world affairs.Since American think tanks can play such an important role in the foreign policy making process, we can more accurately analyze, judge and forecast the developing trend of American global strategy, foreign policy, especially the policy toward China by way of researching American think tanks' policy viewpoints and impression about China. On the other hand, we can influence American impression and policy on China by way of developing exchanges with American mainstream think tanks. In addition, we can draw some helpful lessons from American think tanks' development, and speed up the development of the think tanks of our country.