Chinese foreign aid

China's approach to foreign aid has changed a number of times since the 1949 establishment of the PRC, often prompted by changing domestic circumstances and domestic politics.^[4]: 8

During the Mao era, China focused on providing aid to other countries in support of socialist and anti-imperialist causes.^[5] An early instance was the donation of CHF 20 million to Egypt 1956 during the Suez Crisis.^[5] By the 1960s, China was more broadly providing aid to dozens of Third World countries in Asia and Africa.^[4]: 8 When China began its foreign aid program, it was the only poor country that was supplying outbound foreign aid, even providing assistance to countries that had a higher GDP per capita than China.^[6]: 168 Although China also received foreign aid, it was a net donor of foreign aid during this period.^[4]: 8

During the Cold War, China's foreign aid was often motivated by geopolitics, particularly the issue of international recognition of the PRC (as opposed to the Republic of China government on Taiwan).^[7]: 105

From 1956 to 1976, China provided $3.665 billion in foreign aid to the third world.^[8] China provided ten percent of these aid funds to Middle Eastern countries.^[8]

From 1970 and 1975, China helped finance and build the TAZARA Railway in East Africa, which cost about $500m, and as of 2012 was considered to be China's largest-ever single-item aid project.^[9] In 1974 (near the end of Mao Zedong's period as China's leader), aid reached the remarkably high proportion of 2% of gross national product. The proportion declined greatly thereafter although the absolute quantity of aid has risen with China's growing prosperity.

During the Reform and Opening Up era, China deemed revolutionary-oriented foreign aid no longer financially feasible.^[4]: 8 The motivation of aid became more pragmatic and less about promoting ideology.^[5] Outgoing aid was decreased and redirected towards smaller projects which were more likely to be sustainable.^[4]: 8 China also received increased amounts of development finance, including from Japan and the World Bank, and became a net recipient of foreign aid.^[4]: 8

China again changed its foreign aid approach in the 1990s.^[4]: 8 Following the Cold War, China's participation in foreign aid was increasingly motivated by economic interests, especially resource security.^[7]: 105

China again became a net provider of foreign development finance in 2005.^[4]: 8

The China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) was created in 2018 to help streamline the process of China's foreign aid, in which the ministries of commerce and foreign affairs and the State Council are also involved.^[10] Since 2018, it has had an increasingly significant role in coordinating aid and has done so with a greater focus on foreign policy objectives and opposed to foreign trade objectives.^[11]: 18

Chinese aid, unlike the aid provided by most developed countries, is not governed by the categories of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, and is not counted in international statistics as Official Development Assistance (ODA).^[10] Because it does not operate within the OECD framework, China does not refer to its foreign aid as ODA, instead describing it as foreign aid/assistance (duiwai yuanzhu).^[11]: 115 Rather than being a "donor", China sees itself as working within a framework of South-South cooperation:^[3]

China adheres to the principles of not imposing any political conditions, not interfering in the internal affairs of the recipient countries and fully respecting their right to independently choosing their own paths and models of development. The basic principles China upholds in providing foreign assistance are mutual respect, equality, keeping promise, mutual benefits and win-win.

— White Paper: China's Foreign Aid (2014)

The founding declaration of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) makes explicit China's critique of the dominant global mode of foreign aid, which in the Chinese view results in the mistreatment of developing countries:^{[6]: 82–83}

Each country has the right to choose, in its course of development, its own social system, development model and way of life in light of its national conditions. . . . Moreover, the politicization of human rights conditionalities on economic assistance should be vigorously opposed to as they constitute a violation of human rights.

In contrast to Western models of aid including the OECD model, China does not condition aid on political changes or market liberalization.^[7]: 98

As Professor Dawn C. Murphy summarizes, “From China’s perspective, it is not merely offering an alternative model of foreign aid; it is directly critiquing the current system and the mistreatment of developing countries in that system.”^[6] The only political commitment China requires from aid recipients is that they adhere to the One China principle; China does not otherwise require concessions on issues of governance.^[6][12]

China's approach to financial aid has not changed over time, but the scope of its aid has grown as its own economic development needs have increased.^[6]

As of 2017, China does not provide comprehensive data on its foreign aid.^[13] The OECD has estimated that the quantity of China's ODA-like aid in 2018 was $4.4 billion.^[14] If counted as ODA, this would have placed China tenth in the list of donor states that year, between Norway and Canada, and far behind the United States which provided $34 billion. However, China provides a much higher volume of development financing that would not qualify as ODA because it lacks a sufficient concessional element and/or is linked to commercial transactions.^[13][2] A 2017 study by AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary, found that China's ODA-like aid was effective at producing economic growth in recipient countries.^[13]

The Department of Foreign Aid (established in 1982)^[15]: 9 of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) became the primary government body responsible for coordinating and disbursing foreign aid until 2018.^[11]: 73 That department was incorporated into CIDCA in 2018, and CIDCA now has the primary role in this area.^[11]: 74 According to the December 2021 Measures for the Administration of Foreign Aid, (1) CIDCA is in charge of drafting aid policies, guidelines, annual plans, and budgets; (2) MOFCOM is in charge of implementing foreign aid projects and selecting the firms to undertake them; and (3) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes recommendations based on diplomatic needs and its consulates and embassies supervise overseas projects.^{[11]: 146–147}

Numerous other government bodies also have roles in administering foreign aid and development assistance.^[11]: 73 The National Development and Reform Commission coordinates handles aid on climate cooperation issues.^[11]: 73 The Ministry of Finance makes donations to multilateral financial institutions.^[11]: 73 Humanitarian assistance is led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.^[11]: 73 The Ministry of Education provides government scholarships.^[11]: 73 The National Health Commission coordinates China's overseas medical teams.^[11]: 73

The Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim), a policy bank, provides foreign assistance in the form of concessional loans.^[11]: 74

Due to the secrecy of China's aid programme details (of how much is given, to whom and for what) are difficult to ascertain.^[16]

Official discourse and Chinese academic discourse on foreign aid do not typically describe China as a donor country, instead using terminology like mutual assistance, joint development, and South-South cooperation.^[7]: 97 In China's 2011 foreign aid white paper, foreign aid is characterized as a model which adheres to equality and mutual benefit which avoids attaching political conditions on recipient countries.^[7]: 97

A RAND published study on "China's Foreign Aid and Government Sponsored Investment" estimates the amount of both traditional aid and much more broadly defined government sponsored investment that was pledged by China in 2011 was 189.3 billion US dollars.^[17]

According to a 2017 study, described as “The most detailed study so far of Chinese aid,” by AidData, between 2000 and 2014 China gave about $75 billion, and lent about $275 billion — compared to $424 billion given by America during the same period.^[16] A fifth of this Chinese aid, $75 billion, was in the form of grants (about equivalent to Britain's), while the rest was concessional lending at below-market interest rates.^[16]

In 2019, China provided approximately $5.9 billion in foreign aid.^[18]: 256

Official sources divide financial aid into three categories: grants, interest free loans, and concessional loans.^[7]: 97 Concessional loans are subsidized by China's tax revenues and therefore inexpensive for borrowers.^[11]: 74

Deborah Bräutigam identifies nine types of aid from China including "medical teams, training and scholarships, humanitarian aid, youth volunteers, debt relief, budget support, turn-key or ‘complete plant’ projects [infrastructure, factories], aid-in-kind and technical assistance."^[19]

Grants or non-interest loans have funded 2,025 complete infrastructure project, from the start of aid efforts up to 2009, in the categories of farming, water distribution, conference buildings, education facilities, power supply, transport, industrial facilities, and other projects.^[20] Perhaps the famous type of project is a football stadium, which has been referred to as stadium diplomacy.^[21] A similar type of project that receives attention is the construction of theatres and opera houses.^[22]

By 2019, China had provided more capital to emerging market and developing countries than all Western development institutions combined.^[11]: 1

There is an African focus with about 45% of aid going to African countries in 2009,^[23] and a majority going to African countries in 2019.^[18]: 256 A report by AidData found that as of 2014 the majority of Chinese official development assistance went to Africa.^[24] The greatest recipients of Chinese aid in sub-Saharan Africa are, in descending order, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique, and Republic of Congo.^[6]: 170

In August 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China announced that it would forgive 23 interest-free loans that matured at the end of 2021 to 17 unspecified African countries.^[25]

 

In December 2005, China donated $20 million to the Asian Development Bank for a regional poverty alleviation fund; it was China's first such fund set up at an international institution.^[26]

China's financial assistance for infrastructure development has significantly increased supply capacity in south Asia, particularly among the smaller south Asian countries, beginning in the mid-2000s.^[27] Nepal benefitted from increased Chinese aid, including Chinese financing for a railway from Kathmandu to Lhasa.^[27] China has been an important foreign aid contributor to Sri Lanka since the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009.^[27] In Bangladesh, Chinese foreign aid has also become increasingly important. China has built six major "friendship bridges" in Bangladesh, among other projects.^[27] Because China has trade surpluses with these countries, its providing of foreign aid is viewed by the smaller south Asian countries as a means of insuring their respective bilateral relationships with China are mutually beneficial.^[27]

From the 1970s up to 2022 China has reportedly implemented more than 100 aid projects in Pacific Island countries.^[28]

From 2000 to 2014, Cambodia received 132 projects financed by Chinese aid, a greater number of projects than any other recipient of Chinese aid.^[29]: 103

China's role in the Armenian economy has been a major force for growth and development. Since the early 2000s, China has become Armenia's largest foreign donor, providing over $2 billion in foreign aid between 2000 and 2017.^[30]

• List of development aid agencies
• List of development aid country donors
• Foreign aid to China
• Belt and Road Initiative
• Foreign policy of China