Title: China’s Aid to Africa: Monster or Messiah?
Headings: 
China’s Aid to Africa: Monster or Messiah?
What constitutes China’s aid?
Who does China’s aid serve?
Yun Sun
Nonresident Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Africa Growth Initiative
How to understand Chinese aid to Africa?

Content: The Chinese government encourages its agencies and commercial entities to “closely mix and combine foreign aid, direct investment, service contracts, labor cooperation, foreign trade and export.” [ 8] The goal is to maximize feasibility and flexibility of Chinese projects to meet local realities in the recipient country, but it also makes it difficult to capture which portion of the financing is – or should be – categorized as aid. One rather convincing theory is that the Chinese government in effect pays for the difference between the interest rates of concessional loans provided to Africa and comparable commercial loans. Therefore, only the small difference in interest rates could qualify as Chinese aid. Who does China’s aid serve? Despite Chinese leaders’ claim that China’s assistance to Africa is totally selfless and altruistic, the reality is far more complex. [ 9] China’s policy toward Africa is pragmatic, and aid has been a useful policy instrument since the early days of People’s Republic of China. Yun Sun
Nonresident Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Africa Growth Initiative
During the Cold War, foreign aid an important political tool that China used to gain Africa’s diplomatic recognition and to compete with the United States and the Soviet Union for Africa’s support. Between 1963 and 1964, Zhou Enlai visited 10 African countries and announced the well-known “Eight Principles of Foreign Economic and Technological Assistance.” [ 10] These aid principles were designed to compete simultaneously with the “imperialists” (the United States) and the “revisionists” (the Soviet Union) for Africa’s approval and support.