In 2018, scholars of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) completed more than 400 monographs, more than 5,000 papers, more than 200 research reports and essays, and more than 100 academic materials, compilations of ancient books, translations, popular reading materials and textbooks.

On Jan. 4, CASS released 24 major research achievements of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Innovation Project of 2018 in Beijing. The achievements range from applied research on major national and international topics to archaeological research and compilation of ancient Chinese books.

The year 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up. The CASS series on reform and opening up consists of books from 18 fields, totaling 57.8 million characters, with up to 195 authors. The series focuses on the five major areas of economics, politics, society, culture and ecology, demonstrating the development and changes of China during the past four decades.

The series on targeted poverty alleviation and relief is the result of a major project organized by CASS. The project conducts in-depth research on 104 typical poverty-stricken villages across the country. In order to complete the project, nearly 500 experts and scholars went to the rural villages to carry out extensive investigation and research, spending more than 3,000 working days. With more than 6,000 valid questionnaires available, they completed one general report and about 100 research reports, each of which totaling 50,000 to 80,000 characters. Under pen tips and through lenses, they have recorded the tremendous changes that have taken place in those poor villages in recent years.

The research series on the inscribed bone labels unearthed from the Site of Weiyang Palace in Chang’an City of Han is the result of three decades’ efforts. Consisting of 90 volumes, it is edited by Liu Qingzhu, a research fellow from CASS’s Institute of Archaeology, and other experts. The book series comprehensively compiles 64,305 labels made of bone, offering original scientific research on chronology, ancient philology, the ranking system, the history of Han handicrafts, weapons, archives and calligraphy, and the use and development of national literary texts.

The collection of rare editions of overseas Chinese classics has been completed by dozens of Chinese and international senior scholars after more than one decade. It consists of more than 800 books, with more than 2,000 rare texts included. It is the first time that China has systematically compiled overseas ancient Chinese books.

CASS Member Li Peilin led the analysis and forecast of China’s social situation in 2019; CASS Member Li Yang led it on China’s economy in 2019, providing a profound analysis of the current state of the social and economic situation in China.

The handbook on the Belt and Road (B&R), under the direction of CASS Vice President Cai Fang, is the world’s first encyclopedia of the B&R initiative, covering 117 entries related to the B&R in recent years.

The two volumes of Economics of Climate Change by Pan Jiahua, director of CASS’s Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, has construed the history, theoretical paradigms and analytical approaches of climate change economics at home and abroad. The book has initiated the economic analysis of carbon rights, expanded the normative economic analysis of carbon equity, offered systematic economic research on carbon demand, and proposed the economics of climate capacity and of climate productivity.

The book on the structural change of global economic governance and China’s coping strategies by Zhang Yuyan, director of CASS’s Institute of World Economics and Politics, and others, said that to offer China’s formula for global economic governance requires accurate understanding of the trends of the changes in the global economic governance system. Then it can gradually enhance China’s voice and decision-making power in global governance, promoting global governance in a more just and rational direction.