From Aid To Cooperation:Canada's Aid Toward China(1940s-2010s)

Canada's assistance to China is an important part of China-Canada relations.Early Canadian foreign aid to China can be traced back to the Second World War,which were military aid during wartime and humanitarian aid for post-war reconstruction.After 1949,the two countries have entered a period of low frequency of aid interaction.In October 1970,China and Canada established diplomatic relations.From the 1980s,Canada restarted development aid to China,and listed China as one of the focused countries.China and Canada signed a development cooperation agreement in 1983,which regulated the content,form,and responsibility of Canadian development aid to China in the form of official documents.Since then,Canadian development aid to China has been expanding,including health,basic education,gender equality and environmentally sustainable development.It can be seen from the process of Canadian development aid to China that technical assistance is gradually replacing financial aid as the main form of aid to China,and Canada has also paid more attention to human development issues.Accordingly,the model of Canadian development aid to China can be concluded as "development cooperative assistance",characterizing sustainable development as the core and technical assistance as the main form.Therefore,this article selects Canadian assistance to China as the research object.First,by examining the four stages of Canadian foreign aid to China,the article analyzes the causes,types and paths of Canadian development assistance to China.Secondly,this article analyzes the projects in three major assistance areas,agriculture,health and education,as case studies,and concludes that Canada is slowly shifting its aid method from financial and material donation to technical assistance,such as expert guidance and personnel training.The goals of assistance are also changing to sustainable development as well as the improvement of governance.The assistance model of Canada development assistance to China has gradually formed.Finally,this article argues that the decline of Canada's domestic economy and disputes over aid strategies,along with the rapid growth of China's economic strength,all of which have become challenges for China and Canada to deepen the relationship in development assistance cooperation.