by MICHAEL DUNFORD
Instead of adopting Western norms and values, China is asserting its right to promote its own vision of mutual benefit
China presents its Belt and Road Initiative as a way to address global deficits of development, peace and governance and has called for an international community with a shared future, while some of its critics see these initiatives as a challenge to a Western-dominated liberal world order and an attempt at securing hegemony.
In many ways, China does challenge the Western liberal model and its domination of international discourse and practice—as its distinctive foreign aid practices show—though there is little evidence China is seeking global hegemony. As a new white paper makes clear, China’s path is founded instead on a moral order (Confucian but also socialist) involving lofty ideals of universal harmony (the Great Way), the concept of repayment of kindness by kindness, a tradition of internationalism and a sense of responsibility. That these values might drive international development cooperation derives from the fact that in China the state is not controlled by economic class interests, as is the case in Western liberal capitalist societies.
In some respects Chinese aid is similar to Western aid in that it involves concessional financial flows. However, the aims, principles and practices differ. Moreover, a Western attempt to co-opt China and other emerging aid donors has failed, with implications for the future of development finance and the shape of the world order.
Official Western development assistance dates from the activities of colonial powers in their overseas territories, and is rooted in the idea that developed countries had responsibilities to civilize less developed nations while bringing an overall military, economic and political strategy to prevent the spread of communism and create markets for companies based in the United States. Since 1961, North-South aid has been overseen by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The outcome has been an interventionist model involving coordination, harmonization, monitoring, evaluation and accountability requirements, complex multi-tiered organizational structures and high administrative costs. After the debt crisis, developed countries conditioned aid on a set of neoliberal policy, political and governance reforms.
From 1950, China provided aid to Third World countries. From the 1980s it received DAC aid. In the new millennium DAC aid to China declined, while China emerged as a major provider of South-South aid. China provides grants, interest-free loans and concessional assistance advanced by the Export-Import Bank of China (CHEXIM), as well as preferential export credits, while the China Development Bank (CDB) provides patient capital.
China’s principles and practice do differ significantly from Western aid. China’s aid is based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. These principles reflect the desire of countries that suffered from imperialism and colonial and semi-colonial rule for respect for their territorial integrity and sovereignty, treatment as equals and non-interference in their internal affairs. These horizontal South-South relations of mutual respect differ from vertical North-South power relationships and stand against the view that Western civilization has the right to impose its norms, values, and social model. In a world of multiple civilizations, China calls for a community with a shared future whose principles include equality and mutual benefit, respect for sovereignty, absence of conditionality and the promotion of self-reliance.
Mutual benefit or mutual advantage (and reciprocity) indicates that for China aid is not a unilateral gift—instead, China seeks win-win outcomes. Win-win outcomes are advantageous for the donor and the recipient. This path implies equal partnerships and partner ownership and responsibility, and is reinforced by the notion of equality: the nations involved are equal and not organized into vertical North-South relationships between dominant and dominated countries.
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