Chinese foreign aid may be considered in this article as both governmental (official) and private development aid and humanitarian aid originating from the People’s Republic of China. Chinese official aid - unlike most major nation-state sources of aid - is not regulated and measured under the OECD's protocols for official development assistance (ODA). According to OECD estimates, 2020 official development assistance from China increased to US$4.8 billion. In this respect, the program is similar in monetary size to those of Norway and Canada. China, however, provides a larger amount of development finance in the form of less-concessional loans. The Chinese government represents its aid as characterised by a framework of South-South cooperation and "not interfering in the internal affairs of the recipient countries". History Following the establishment in 1949 of the People's Republic of China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China began providing aid to other countries in support of socialist and anti-imperialist causes. An early instance was the donation of CHF 20 million to Egypt 1956 during the Suez Crisis. When China began its foreign aid program, it was the only poor country that was supplying outbound foreign aid, even providing assistance to countries that had a higher GDP per capita than China did. From 1956-1976, China provided $3.665 billion in foreign aid to the third world. China provided ten percent of these aid funds to Middle Eastern countries. From 1970 and 1975, China helped finance and build the TAZARA Railway in East Africa, which cost about $500m, and as of 2012 was considered to be China's largest-ever single-item aid project. In 1974 (near the end of Mao Zedong's period as China's leader), aid reached the remarkably high proportion of 2% of gross national product. The proportion declined greatly thereafter although the absolute quantity of aid has risen with China's growing prosperity. Meanwhile, the motivation of aid became more pragmatic and less about promoting a grand ideology. The China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) was created in 2018 to help streamline the process of China's foreign aid, in which the ministries of commerce and foreign affairs and the State Council are also involved. Comparison with ODA Chinese aid, unlike the aid provided by most developed countries, is not governed by the categories of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, and is not counted in international statistics as Official Development Assistance (ODA). Rather than being a "donor", China sees itself