China yesterday defended its burgeoning role as a foreign aid donor, saying its assistance boosts developing countries and provides a new alternative to Western donors who impose more conditions on recipients.
China’s foreign aid has swelled nearly 30 percent a year since 2004, and from the first year of the communist government in 1950 through 2009 totaled 256.2 billion yuan (US$39.2 billion), the State Council Information Office said in the report, its first ever on the subject.
The gathering pace of Chinese aid is evident in many corners of the developing world. It’s building roads and railways around Africa, cotton mills in Syria, cement plants in Peru and bridges in Bangladesh. While welcomed by recipient governments, it has drawn fire from the US and other Western donors, who say Beijing’s lack of transparency is contributing to corruption and mismanagement.
China said in the report that its rise as an aid donor is a positive at a time when the global financial crisis is straining most other countries’ budgets.
While the report addresses some criticisms, saying Chinese projects employ local workers, it largely glosses over contentious issues. It lacks specifics on aid to particular countries and does not address complaints that many aid-backed projects require the use of Chinese contractors or the preference for payment in oil, minerals or other natural resources.
Still, the report marks a step toward transparency for a government that has largely refused to subject its aid program to international scrutiny.
“It’s a big step for them,” said Deborah Brautigam, an expert on China-Africa relations at American University in Washington.
“They’re trying to figure out what it means to be a responsible, great power, and one of the things they’ve been getting beaten up about a lot is foreign aid,” she said.
Brautigam said information about China’s foreign aid had previously trickled out in a piecemeal fashion and not been compiled into an official report.
In defending the aid program, the report portrays China as a willing, well-funded partner for the developing world, ready to grant assistance without “political strings attached” — unlike Western donors who impose stringent conditions and whose own budgets are increasingly strained.
“Currently, the global development environment is very grim,” the report said, pointing to the impact of the global financial crisis, climate change, energy security and other challenges. “China, as an important member of the international society, will as always, push forward south-south cooperation, and based on continued economic development, gradually increase the input for external assistance.”
China’s total aid is still small compared with established donors. The US’ official development assistance totaled US$28.8 billion in 2009. While Beijing has not published a comparable figure, Brautigam says China disbursed an estimated US$3.1 billion in 2009.
However, Beijing’s willingness to deal with repressive and corrupt governments and to zero in on countries rich in resources that gives the Chinese program added impact.
Of the 256.2 billion yuan in overall aid, the report said 40 percent is “free aid,” or grants typically used for projects such as building hospitals, schools and low-cost housing. The rest is divided evenly between interest-free loans and concessionary, or low-interest, loans.
Those concessionary loans went to 76 countries and nearly two-thirds funded economic infrastructure projects, while nearly 9 percent supported oil and mining projects, the report said.
In a measure of China’s large and growing stake in Africa, the report said that nearly half of all foreign assistance in 2009 went to African countries and a third to Asia. The report did not provide a figure for the amount of aid.
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