Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Published in:
Introduction: Emerging Powers as Development Assistance Providers in International Aid Architecture Read chapter Read first chapter

2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Chinese Development Assistance: Leveraging Deep Pockets

Author : Chithra Purushothaman

Published in: Emerging Powers, Development Cooperation and South-South Relations

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

The rise of China from a recipient to a net donor is a defining feature of twenty-first-century aid architecture, where the traditional donors’ aid is dwindling and the gap left by these countries is being filled by emerging powers with their own aid programmes. With the rising economic clout, China has pushed its aid programmes to new levels, where its volume and geographic scope has expanded considerably, signifying its changing priorities and preferences. While China identifies itself as an emerging power of the Global South, its increasing role in international politics, where it is ready to take over the US in the economic realm and expanding its global influence through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) brings forth the ambiguities in China’s desire for a global role and its preferred identity. This chapter argues that China is using its aid as an instrument to create favourable outcomes and trying to build its standing vis-a-vis other players, including great powers and regional powers, thereby consolidating its position in the global order.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe




 

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
previous chapter COBRADI: The Rise and Fall of a Southern Provider
next chapter Indian Development Cooperation: Aiming High, Falling Short
Footnotes
1
Even though China’s GDP per capita is increasing, it is nowhere near the GDP per capita of the developed countries of the Global North.
 
2
The Asian-African Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Bandung, Indonesia (1955).
 
3
See, Annexure 1.
 
4
China provided economic as well as military aid to these countries under the colonial rule to fight for their independence (Li et al. 2014).
 
5
IATI aims at enhancing donor coordination and minimising duplication and waste.
 
6
China Exim Bank is one of three “policy banks”, the other two being the China Development Bank and China Agricultural Development Bank, both set up in 1994 “to better enable the government to directly finance its development goals as it transitioned to a market economy” (Brautigam 2010, 4).
 
7
Democracy promotion and good governance are the conditionalities inherent to OECD-DAC aid to development countries.
 
8
See, Annexure 1.
 
9
China has the maximum voting shares, 26.65%, followed by India, 7.65%.
 
10
These figures are supposedly devoid of China’s medical assistance, scholarship assistance or contributions to international organisations. Hence, if those figures were to be included in its development assistance, the amount disbursed might be much higher than projected (SAIS-CARI 2016b).
 
11
Sudan was the second-largest oil producer in Africa before splitting into Sudan and South Sudan in 2011.
 
12
China has been involved in large-scale economic infrastructure projects including Tanzania-Zambia Railway, railway projects in Botswana, the Lagdo Hydropower station in Cameroon and the Gotera interchange in Addis Ababa (White Paper 2011).
 
13
China has several agricultural projects in several African countries including, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Niger. In order to share agricultural technology with its partners, China has opened several institutions in Africa like the Agricultural Demonstration Centre in Tanzania and Zimbabwe (Li et al. 2014).
 
14
This includes water supply projects in Mauritania, Tanzania and Niger.
 
15
For example, Hospitals were built in different countries in Africa including the Taizz Revolution Comprehensive Hospital in Yemen and hospitals in the Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe and Chad.
 
16
Considering the shared history of anti-colonial struggles, China can build more friendly and symmetric relations with Africa.
 
17
Moises Naim (2009) calls countries like China, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as “rogue aid providers” who don’t care nothing more than their self-interest and give aid to authoritarian regimes.
 
18
For example, the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan, the Greater Mekong Sub-region Information Highway in Myanmar and the No. 7 Highway in Cambodia.
 
19
For example, Gwadar Port in Pakistan and the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka.
 
20
It starts from Xinjiang region in the western part of China to Europe via Central Asia.
 
21
It is a customs union comprising of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
 
22
The mature governmental debts of some developing countries that they owe China are cancelled as a part of its debt relief programme.
 
23
It included the US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.
 
24
This group includes East Germany, Cuba, North Korea and Czechoslovakia.
 
25
China assisted Indonesia in expanding its electricity grid. However, China used highly polluting coal-based technology to build the power plants thereby increasing pollution in the country.
 
Literature
Alden, Christopher. (2007), China in Africa, London and New York: Zed. Cited in Raposo, Pedro Amakasu and Potter, David M. (2010), “Chinese and Japanese Development Co-operation: South-South, North-South, or what?” Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 28(2): 177–202.
Bijian, Zhang. (2005), “China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’ to Great Power Status”, Foreign Affairs, 84(5): 18–24.
Brautigam, Deborah. (1998), Chinese Aid and African development: Exporting Green Revolution, New York: St. Martin’s.
Brautigam, Deborah. (2009), The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, New York: Oxford University Press.
Brzezinski, Z. (2004), The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, New York: Basic Books.
Cooper, John F. (1976), China’s Foreign Aid: An Instrument of Peking’s Foreign Policy, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Dadwal, S.R. and Purushothaman, C. (2017). CPEC in Pakistan’s Quest for Energy Security, Strategic Analysis, 41(5): 515–524.
Goldstein, A. (2005), Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and International Security, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gu, Jing et al. (2007), “Global Governance and Developing Countries: The Implications of the Rise of China”, World Development, 36(2): 274–292.
Kersting, E. and Kilby, C. (2014). “Aid and Democracy Redux”, European Economic Review, 67: 125–143.
Kitano, N. (2016). “Estimating China’s Foreign Aid II: 2014 Update”, JICA-RI Working Paper No. 131.
Kupchan, C. (2001), “Explaining Peaceful Transitions” in C.A. Kupchan, E. Adler, Jean-MarcCoicaud, and Y.F. Khong (eds.), Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order, Tokyo, New York and Paris: United Nations University Press.
Li, A. (2007), “China and Africa: Policy and Challenges”, China Security, 3: 69–93.
Lin, R. (2001), “Complementary Measures to Foreign Aid: Taiwan and the PRC under Diplomatic Rivalry”, Contemporary Economic Policy, 19(3): 360–368.
McCormick, Dorothy. (2008), “China & India as Africa’s New Donors: The Impact of Aid on Development”, Review of African Political Economy, 35: 115, 73–92.
Medeiros, Evan S. and Fravel, M. Taylor. (2003), “China’s New Diplomacy”, Foreign Affairs, 82(6): 22–35.
Omuruyi, Leslie. (2001), Contending Theories on Development Aid: Post-Cold War Evidence from Africa, Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Raposo, Pedro Amakasu and Potter, David M. (2010), “Chinese and Japanese Development Co-operation: South-South, North-South, or What?” Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 28(2): 177–202.
Segal, Gerald. (1999), “Does China Matter?” Foreign Affairs, 78(5): 24–36.
Shambaugh, David L. (2004/2005), “China Engages Asia Reshaping the Regional Order”, International Security, 29(3): 64–99.
Tan-Mullins, May et al. (2010), “Redefining ‘Aid’ in the China-Africa Context”, Development and Change, 41(5): 857–881.
Taylor, Ian. (1998), “China’s Foreign Policy Towards Africa in the 1990s”, Journal of Modern African Studies, 36(3): 443–460.
Taylor, Ian. (2006), “China’s Oil Diplomacy in Africa”, International Affairs, 82(5): 937–959.
Tull, Denis M. (2006), “China’s Engagement in Africa: Scope, Significance and Consequences”, Journal of Modern African Studies, 44(3): 459–479.
Woods, Ngaire. (2008), “Whose Aid? Whose Influence? China, Emerging Donors and the Silent Revolution in Development Assistance”, International Affairs, 84(6):1205–1221.
Zafar, Ali. (2007), “The Growing Relationship Between China and Sub-Saharan Africa: Macroeconomic, Trade, Investment and Aid Links”, World Bank Research Observer, 22(1): 103–130.
Zhang, D. and Smith, G. (2017), “China’s Foreign Aid System: Structure, Agencies and Identities”, Third World Quarterly, 38(10): 2330–2346.
Metadata
Title
Chinese Development Assistance: Leveraging Deep Pockets
Author
Chithra Purushothaman
Copyright Year
2021
Book
Emerging Powers, Development Cooperation and South-South Relations

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51536-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-51537-9

Copyright Year: 2021

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51537-9_4