IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/glopol/v16y2025i3p494-500.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Navigating the In‐Between Space: The Roles of Chinese Think Tanks in Artificial Intelligence Governance

Author

Listed:
  • Qiaochu Zhang

Abstract

As the global landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance rapidly evolves, research has increasingly moved beyond state‐centric perspectives to investigate the role of non‐state actors. This paper focuses on an underexplored category of such actors: think tanks, specifically two prominent Chinese institutions—the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and the Centre for International Security and Strategy (CISS). Drawing on the Communities of Practice (CoPs) approach, this study investigates how these think tanks shape the emerging governance framework for AI technologies by leveraging their position at the boundaries between various CoPs. Specifically, this position of in‐betweenness enables them to influence AI governance through acting as boundary brokers. They bridge different Chinese CoPs—including the government, the private sector, and academia—and, in some cases, international CoPs, facilitating engagement and exchange across these communities. This paper also finds that due to differences in their organisational types and relationships with the Chinese government, CAICT and CISS influence AI governance in subtly distinct ways. This paper contributes to CoP scholarship by examining its applicability in an authoritarian context and is among the first to provide a timely empirical analysis of the role of Chinese think tanks in AI governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Qiaochu Zhang, 2025. "Navigating the In‐Between Space: The Roles of Chinese Think Tanks in Artificial Intelligence Governance," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 16(3), pages 494-500, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:16:y:2025:i:3:p:494-500
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.70053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70053
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1758-5899.70053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:16:y:2025:i:3:p:494-500. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.