The failure of the U.S. campaign to dissuade allies from joining China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was greeted in some quarters as a sign of American decline. But this episode was not a crisis of American power, which remains unequaled. And while the threat that the bank poses to that power and to the international order it undergirds has been much touted, it is in fact overstated. In fact, the main portent of the episode is not Beijing’s overturning of the international economic order or the arrival of China as a U.S.

China has grown rapidly in influence and ability to act in the international arena. That means it faces bigger, tougher and ever more urgent challenges. Therefore, there is a growing need for more high quality think tanks which can offer solutions to these challenges by mining the wisdom in the broader society.