Inspiration and Aspiration: National Interest and Profit Motive

Abstract

Along with the growing economic strength in recent years, China’s foreign aids have developed rapidly both in speed and scale. At the same time, as the world’s largest developing country, China’s foreign aid is significantly different from the traditional Western aids. China has consistently put emphasis on developing win-win and mutually beneficial South-South cooperative relationship with other developing countries, while encouraging sustainable development of aid projects by combining aids with investment and trade, so as to improve the development effectiveness in partner countries. The international academic community has expressed varied opinions on China’s practice in foreign aids. One view regards China’s practice in African countries as a kind of neo-colonialism for the purpose of establishing hegemony (Australia et al. 2008; McMichael 2012), plundering resources under the pretext of aids and investment, and facilitating the rapid economic growth in China (Fisherman 2005; Junger 2007; Rotberg 2008; Wild and Mepham 2006). Another view believes that China advocated and practiced “development partnership” in Africa for the purpose of imparting its own development experience to African countries (Goldstein and Reisen 2006; Le Pere 2007; Taylor 2006). Compared with traditional donor countries, China has paid more attention to the actual situation of recipient countries and introduced a demand-oriented and more effective way of development cooperation, which is more welcome and better received by recipient countries (Moyo 2010). In spite of disparities, all opinions send a common message that China, as an emerging economy, plays a vital role in international development assistance and in bringing about structural changes of international assistance (Bräutigam, 2010). On the whole, these studies did not get away from the traditional binary opposition that defines Sino-African partnership from the black-or-white or zero-sum perspective. The inadequate attention to the recipient countries and the stakeholders in the Sino-Africa interactions has seriously impaired the description and judgment of local phenomena, let alone interpreting the logic beneath the phenomena. From the perspective of methodology, the existing studies of China’s foreign aids mostly adopted discourse analysis or macro-data description. The framework and foundation of the analysis are mostly liberal or neo-liberal, with the local perspective of recipient in neglect (Mohen and Lampert 2012). On the other hand, the Chinese scholars; studies and analysis of China’s foreign aids are largely limited to the macro perspective of international relations, lacking a systematic study into the operation of Chinese aid projects at a specific and micro level. Based on the case study of a flagship agricultural assistance project of China, this chapter follows the anthropological research methodology to present an in-depth understanding of the interaction process between multiple Chinese and African stakeholders during the implementation of China’s foreign aid projects, analyze the logic of Chinese foreign aid projects’ local operation and its impact on Africa, and interpret the underlying economic, social and cultural factors, in a bid to reveal the deep-seated characteristics of China’s foreign aids.

We are under great pressure to develop China’s first agricultural technology demonstration center in Africa. If our ATDC is poorly developed, we would have failed at the task entrusted to us by the country. The only way to maintain the sustainability of the ATDC is commercial operation. In this way, the operating units can undertake the public welfare function of the aid project while making profits, naturally leading to the mutual benefits and win-win results.

—Director of China’s ATDC in Country M