China’s Aid to Africa - Influence on the Global Development Cooperation Landscape

Abstract

Development cooperation or the previously called development assistance has long been considered a product of colonial power relations from Britain’s Colonial Development and Welfare Act in 1940 until the domination by the donor’s club Development Assistance Committee (DAC) established within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). For over half a century, developed countries have dominated development cooperation, while emerging economies led by China, which has substantially scaled up its foreign aid to Africa and other poorer countries, have put pressure on the transformation of the established development cooperation regime. Under the recent One Belt One Road Initiative, China is reinforcing its aid to Africa ambitiously with stronger political backing. This paper examines the changes in post World War II development cooperation, focusing on the role of China’s aid to Africa and the growing relevance of its influence on recipient countries and established donors over the last three decades. It offers the nuanced perspective that China’s development cooperation in Africa today is an externalization of China’s own modernization experiences and the leadership’s foreign policy.