CHINAID-Infrastructure For The Neighborhood: The Regional Story Of Chinese Economic Assistance

The debate over Chinese foreign economic assistance is a polemical one in international relations circles. As China’s engagement with its neighbors deepens, so too proliferate the questions surrounding China’s motivations. This paper investigates China’s foreign assistance programs in its neighborhood, specifically those targeting the transport infrastructure industry as a vehicle for regional development in Asia. By identifying the primary actors responsible for such assistance programs, this research shows that China’s external assistance is inextricably linked to its own objectives for national development. Furthermore, these assistance programs must be understood in terms of China’s conception of an Asia First policy as well as of South-South cooperation, and, even more so, in the larger context of China’ own development and global rise. Asia’s four sub-regions, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Northeast Asia, are exceedingly diverse in terms of political systems, population, and resources, but all share a common plight: weak to non-existent transport infrastructure. China has stepped into the fold with ease to help fill Asia’s developmental gap. "Going global" and China’s "peaceful rise" have been major facilitators for the expansion of Chinese presence regionally. "Going global," once a purely business oriented policy, has become a dual-use tool:one part economic and one part diplomatic to pursue China’s foreign policy objectives, coupling economic partnerships with the realization of broader geopolitical interests. Throughout Asia’s sub-regions, we see a distinct pattern of Chinese involvement in the construction and financing of road and rail. Nevertheless, China is still learning the ropes as a donor state, often caught between the dilemmas of short-term versus long-term benefits. Still in its infancy, Chinese aid lacks a concrete foreign assistance strategy; time and continued observation of Chinese activities in its periphery will indicate if the PRC can wield its assistance, founded on essential developmental building blocks, to serve not only its own but also Asia’s regional benefit.