China's Aid and Other State-Financed Projects in Developing Countries: Allocation Patterns and Consequences

China's development cooperation is growing rapidly in Africa and beyond. Many observers see this development as a threat to the international aid architecture dominated by the United States, Europe, and Japan. Others praise Beijing for the great development opportunities that have arisen. This seminar talk provides an overview of recent research on China’s development cooperation based on a new global database detailing China’s development projects. We will explore the following questions: How can we measure China’s development footprint? What determines the amount of Chinese aid and official finance projects? In which countries, provinces, and sectors is China active and why? What are the implications of Beijing’s development activities on growth, spatial inequality, good governance, conflict, and other development indicators in African recipient countries? Does China's development aid change the way the "West" operates its development cooperation?

Speaker:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Fuchs, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg (HSU) and Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)