China's Foreign Aid and Government-Sponsored Investment Activities

With the world's second largest economy, China has the capacity to engage in substantial programs of economic assistance and government-sponsored investments in 93 emerging-market countries. In the first decade of the 21st century, China has expanded and directed this capacity in these countries for both their benefit and for China's own benefit. Using several data sources and aggregation methods, RAND researchers built a large database, expanding upon prior Congressional Research Service data and enabling the programs to be more fully described and analyzed. Access to the database is available to interested readers who wish to request it from RAND. The RAND research assessed the scale, trends, and composition of these programs in the emerging-market economies of six regions: Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia. Finally, the research derived inferences and insights from the analysis that may enhance understanding of the programs and policies pertaining to them. In general, China's use of foreign aid and government-sponsored investment activities has burgeoned in recent years, with emphasis on building infrastructure and increasing supplies of natural resources (including energy resources and ferrous and nonferrous minerals). Loans that include substantial subsidies provide financing for many of these programs, but the loans are accompanied by rigorous debt-servicing conditions that distinguish China's foreign aid from the grant financing that characterizes development aid provided by the United States and other nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.