The South China Morning Post reported on May 13, 2017, that a two-day academic seminar at China’s largest non-official think tank, the Unirule Institute of Economics, did not take place on May 13, 2017, because the doors and lifts at its office building were locked and disabled amid upgraded security for Beijing’s two-day OBOR Forum that began on May 14. Wu Si, Unirule’s Chairman, said the think tank was told on May 12, night not to hold the seminar. On the same day, Zhang Junkuo, Vice President of the State Council’s Development Research Centre, said at a press briefing that the country would encourage more think tanks to take part and provide advice to the country’s belt and road initiatives, with so far 47 think tanks from 30 countries having joined the China-led Silkroad Think Tank Association. 

Most speakers for the Unirule meeting were advised against attending the seminar, and the think tank’s founder Mao Yushi, who was to give the opening speech on Saturday morning, was prevented from leaving his home on May 13 morning. He said “Police officers nearby and a department director from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences came to my house early this morning. They told me not to go to the seminar, but did not state their reason.”

(Comment: Mao, an 88-year-old liberal economist, is a retired CASS researcher. He won the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty in 2012 but was banned from travelling overseas to receive the prize.)