China's Aid To Albania: Motivation?Impact And Evaluation

There is no doubt that the foreign aid is important to China's diplomacy,however,this is only an overall assessment.As far as a recipient country is concerned,whether and to what extent China's assistance is of positive significance to the development of bilateral relations and the promotion of China's national interests,how to improve assistance to further promote the development of bilateral relations and national interests to a greater degree are still worth studying.The purpose of this article is to start with China's assistance to Albania,and analyze the significance of aid in the development of bilateral relations and propose suggestions for improving the effectiveness of aid.In the 1960 s,China's generous aid was first based on ideological considerations.Common ideology and responsive assistance affected Albania's the positive assessment of China and its assistance,which promoted the establishment of special relations between the two countries.In the 1970 s,ideology was also a decisive factor in the deterioration of relations between China and Albania.The reason for Albanian dissatisfaction with China was first and foremost a dissatisfaction with China's ideological turn.It further resulted in a rift in China-Arab relations.The rift in political relations and the fact that China reduced its aid for the limited national power collectively caused the breakdown of China-Albanian relations.And China's reduction of aid to Albania is not only due to national power constraints,but at least equally important factor is the deterioration of bilateral political relations caused by ideology.In this process,ideology is a more important factor that affected relations between the two countries than aid.After the 1980 s,under the direction of the new foreign policy,China-Albania relations have entered a new stage.During the collapse of the Albanian national economy,China provided assistance within a limited range of capabilities;when political changes from a socialist state to a capitalist country occurred in Albania,China positively responded to the political goodwill released by it and cooperated with Albania and provide assistance under the principle of mutual assistance and common development.After entering the 21 st century,especially since the 18 th National Congress of the People's Republic of China,on the basis of the diplomatic concept of building a community of common destiny,on the foundation of the China-Central and Eastern Europe "16+1" cooperation mechanism and the Maritime Silk Road,China's aid to Albania has paid more attention to intelligence and technical support.China's policy tends to coincide with Albania's goal of improving its competitiveness to enter the EU,and the relationship between the two countries has entered a period of steady development.From this process,we can find that the decisive factor in determining the direction of China-Albania relations is not China's assistance,but the consideration of their own national interests,and aid has only served as a booster.The establishment of a special relationship between China and Albania is based on a common ideology.The reason for its subsequent breakdown of lies in the differences in the ordering of their national interests after China's ideological transformation.Later,China and Albania resumed normal state relations and developed steadily,which is also due to common national interests of the two countries.China's aid has played a role in the transformation of this process,but we cannot overestimate the significance of aid to China-Albania relations.It is only one of the tools for China to carry out diplomatic policy.Albania indeed has a return on China's aid,but that is not the result of aid alone.When the relationship between the two countries is good,aid will help promote the development of bilateral relations.When the relationship goes down,it will be difficult to reverse the trend just by providing assistance.It is unrealistic to change the development trend of bilateral relations through aid.It is only the common interests of the two countries that play a decisive role in the change and improvement of China-Albania relations.National interests are more important in influencing their relations than aid.