Do authoritarian regimes receive more Chinese development finance than democratic ones? Empirical evidence for Africa

Broich, Tobias

doi:10.1016/j.chieco.2017.09.006

Cited by 31 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…Panel D of Figure 3 shows that poorer countries indeed receive more Chinese aid projects per year on average. Empirical analyses that control for confounding factors confirm that poorer countries receive more Chinese aid than richer ones, all else being equal (Dreher and Fuchs 2015;Broich 2017;Dreher et al forthcoming). However, this is not yet proof that China's aid allocation pattern is guided by developmental and humanitarian concerns.…”

Section: Developmental and Humanitarian Concernsmentioning

confidence: 94%

The motives of China’s foreign aid

Fuchs¹,

Rudyak²

2019

Handbook on the International Political Economy of China

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This chapter discusses the political, economic, and humanitarian motives driving Chinese aid. Concerning the political drivers, the Chinese government uses aid as a foreign policy tool, which should help the country to create a favorable international environment for China's development, support the country's rise to global power status, influence global governance, and reward countries that abide by the One-China Policy. Moreover, aid has increasingly been used to promote trade with developing countries and loans are extended in exchange for natural resources. Finally, China emphasizes that it gives aid in order to help other developing countries to reduce poverty and improve people's livelihoods, a claim supported by the data as poorer countries receive more support. While the mixture of political, economic and humanitarian goals does not set China apart from the so-called "traditional" Western donors, China differs in the detailed content of its interests and the explicit emphasis on "mutual benefit" in the pursuance of its goals. Acknowledgements: Excellent research assistance was provided by Samuel Siewers and Felix Turbanisch. We further thank Jamie Parsons for proofreading of an earlier version of this chapter. This is a draft chapter. The final version will be available in the Handbook of the International Political Economy of China edited by Ka Zeng, forthcoming, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only. 1 Kobayashi (2008) and Brautigam (2009) provide thorough overviews of the history of China's aid giving. Johnston and Rudyak (2017) have shown how Chinese aid as it stands today was shaped by global shifts. 2 The earliest commonly available historical data on Chinese aid were collected by the German Sinologist Wolfgang Bartke (1989) and Taiwanese China scholar Lin Teh-chang (1993). 3 Following the signing of the Sino-Soviet friendship treaty in 1950, the Soviet Union began to provide assistance to China in the form of concessional loans, which were 'tied' to the purchase of commodities and war materials from the Soviet Union and were typically attached to Soviet technical experts. See also Asmus et al. (2017) for a literature review on Russian (and other BRICS) aid. Union has given to China is a great example of this type of relationship. [The] Soviet Union, China and other Socialist countries have been expanding their economic cooperation with many countries in Asia and Africa based on this principle [sic.] […]. (Zhou 1956; translated from Chinese in Rudyak 2014: 6) At the same time, Zhou's historical speech shows that China considered economic independence as crucial to achieving political independence (from the U.S. and the West)-for itself and for other developing countries: China is a country that just recently has been liberated. Our economy is still very backward; we still haven't achieved full economic independence […] But we have understood that economic independence is of major signific...

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Section: Developmental and Humanitarian Concernsmentioning

confidence: 94%

The motives of China’s foreign aid

Fuchs¹,

Rudyak²

2019

Handbook on the International Political Economy of China

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“…Many scholars thus identified foreign aid as the main means through which China may promote authoritarianism. It has been argued that China used its increasing importance as an aid donor to undo Western attempts to promote democracy in Africa and elsewhere (see Broich 2017). This contention has raised further questions concerning both motives and effects of Chinese aid, both in itself and compared to Western donor countries.…”

Section: China: An Authoritarian Model For Africa?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the Impact of a Model: The (Non)Relationship between China's Economic Rise and African Democracy

Davidsson

2020

Politics & Policy

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Many scholars have regarded China's emergence as an economic force as a threat to democracy in Africa, presenting China as the exporter of an authoritarian model through its rising economic influence. This article investigates how well founded the contended Chinese economic threat to Africa is by both analyzing the data at a very fundamental level and applying time-series, cross-sectional analysis to economic and political data. In particular, the relationship between Chinese economic interactions with African states and democracy is explored. The analysis considers different aspects of an economic interaction with China measured both as share of GDP and of country totals. I do not find a relationship between Chinese economic interaction with African states and democracy in these states. The article thus contributes much important groundwork concerning the existence of patterns in Chinese economic relations and democracy, as well as some specific links between these economic relations and political change.

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“…Looking at aid flows, Broich () finds that Chinese ODA does not go systematically towards more authoritarian countries, even when the sample is restricted to sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries. However, this is only part of the story.…”

Section: China's Involvement In Africa: Nature and Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economics of China's engagement with Africa: What is the empirical evidence?

Martuscelli

2019

Development Policy Review

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Motivation In the last decade, economic and political ties between China and African countries grew fast, fuelling a heated debate about the implications for the latter and for the global system of China's engagement in Africa. Purpose The article reviews the existing evidence on the nature, causes and impact of China's economic engagement in Africa. Approach and methods The review focuses mainly on the economic literature with a quantitative focus. Findings China's reasons to engage with Africa are not so different from those of western countries: securing natural resources and seeking new export markets. However, there is evidence that China is less interested in the quality of governance and institutions of its African partners. The literature tends to agree on the positive growth effects for African countries of Chinese interest, but also suggests that their already thin manufacturing sector could be adversely affected by Chinese competition and that the increasing natural resource specialization of African countries might hamper diversification, structural transformation and future growth prospects. At the same time Chinese investments are building valuable infrastructure and linkages with local firms, which are growing although still very limited. The emergent trend of increasing presence of small and medium Chinese firms in Africa is promising in this respect. Policy implications Increased Chinese interactions with African countries present opportunities as well as threats for African countries. A key aspect will be the capacity of Chinese presence in Africa to spread to the local economy through spillover effects and linkages to the domestic economy. Both sides should introduce policies aimed at strengthening these linkages and spillovers.

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Do authoritarian regimes receive more Chinese development finance than democratic ones? Empirical evidence for Africa

Cited by 31 publications

References 103 publications

The motives of China’s foreign aid

The motives of China’s foreign aid

Modeling the Impact of a Model: The (Non)Relationship between China's Economic Rise and African Democracy

The economics of China's engagement with Africa: What is the empirical evidence?

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