Mutual Delegitimization: American and Chinese Development Assistance in Africa

Abstract

How and to what extent can China’s ideas of development assistance to Africa be regarded within the context of a wider struggle among global powers? Deploying an analytically eclectic approach, this paper offers two preliminary and exploratory arguments. First, in contrast to the dominant public understanding that Chinese aid has “no strings attached”, the paper shows that US and Chinese governments’ aid strategies champion their own geostrategic national interests in the African continent. Whereas the US considers socio-political transformation in aid recipient country as a key condition for foreign assistance, Chinese strategy fosters its own national economic interests by employing Chinese nationals in foreign aid projects, while also enhancing the global footprint of state-funded Chinese contracting companies. Second, by arguing that China and the US aid strategies demonstrate an ongoing power struggle in the international development sector, this paper deploys both realist and constructivist insights in International Relations theory.

Keywords: foreign aid, China, United States, international development, human rights, Africa, rising powers