Estimating China’s foreign aid using new data

Abstract

This article presents updated estimates of China’s foreign aid between 2001 and 2014 as a proxy for China’s official development assistance (ODA) as defined by the OECD-DAC, and to compare this with the ODA of other DAC members. China’s net foreign aid increased from US$5.2bn in 2012 to US$5.4bn in 2013, but dropped to US$4.9bn in 2014. Since 2013, China has ranked at number nine. Its bilateral foreign aid has ranked at number six, alongside Japan and France, since 2012, while multilateral foreign aid has been relatively less significant. It is estimated that net disbursements of preferential export buyer’s credits decreased from US$4.9bn in 2012 to US$4.7bn in 2013, increasing to US$6.1bn in 2014. China has increased the volume of its foreign aid, improved the quality of it, and diversified the fields of aid activity. It is important for the international community to carefully examine the magnitude of China’s foreign aid.