China’s foreign aid as a proxy of ODA: preliminary estimate 2001-2022

ABSTRACT

By establishing the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) in 2018, China has attempted to enhance foreign aid as a diplomatic means and has been more assertive in providing foreign aid through both bilateral and multilateral channels. However, China only publishes aggregated foreign aid statistics in white papers, and data beyond 2019 are not available. This paper aims to estimate China’s foreign aid from 2001 to 2022 as a proxy for Official Development Assistance (ODA) defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results revealed that China’s foreign aid, on a grant-equivalent basis, decreased from US$6.4 billion in 2019 to US$5.0 billion in 2020. China has mobilized a large amount of funding for international cooperation on COVID-19. It is unclear how much of this was financed by regular foreign aid budgets. Thus, two cases were set in the current study. In the upper case, all donated vaccines, estimated at US$3.9 billion, came from other sources while in the lower case, it was assumed that the regular foreign aid budget covered all costs. China’s foreign aid in 2022 was estimated at US$7.9 billion in the upper case and US$5.0 billion in the lower case. Compared with major ODA donors, China ranked 6th in the upper case and 13th in the lower case. Currently, the CIDCA is attempting to mobilize new financial resources to expand its activities under the Global Development Initiative. It is important to continue to comprehensively examine how China proceeds in improving its development cooperation.

KEYWORDS:

• China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA)
• debt
• foreign aid
• Global development initiative (GDI)
• Official development assistance (ODA)
• vaccine

1. Introduction

In April 2018, the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) was established as a new vice-ministerial level agency under the State Council, with the aim of better aligning foreign aid with China’s overall foreign policy and enhancing its management and coordination.¹ Three years after its establishment, a new document titled “Administrative Measures for Foreign Aid” was issued jointly by the CIDCA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) in August 2021.² This document stipulates the institutional division of labor such that the CIDCA is responsible for managing and coordinating foreign aid, while the MOFCOM and other foreign aid implementation departments are responsible for undertaking the specific implementation of foreign aid projects, and Chinese embassies carry out administration of foreign aid overseas.³

China has become more assertive in providing foreign aid through both bilateral and multilateral channels. The third white paper on foreign aid titled “China’s International Development Cooperation in the New Era” released in January 2021 describes China’s foreign aid policies, progress, and actions since 2013. These measures include international cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the 2030 Agenda) with 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), and against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

In September 2021, as a new major diplomatic effort, China’s President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. The GDI was designed as a global platform for accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda facilitating the achievement of all 17 SDGs with eight priority areas, including poverty reduction, food security, and pandemic response and vaccines.⁴ The CIDCA established the Global Development Promotion Center as a secretariate. The Global Development Project Pool and the Global Development Capital Pool were established to facilitate projects proposed by developing countries and international organizations, with financing offered by financial institutions. Provisional guidelines for these pools have been released.⁵ China has announced plans to increase the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund (formally South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund) from USD 3 billion to USD 4 billion. The CIDCA also raised a development fund amounting to USD 12 billion by signing a memorandum of understanding with the China Development Bank (CDB), the Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).⁶

The GDI is considered an important supplement and expansion of the BRI.⁷ At the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in October 2023, eight major steps for the BRI were announced including the promotion of signature projects and “small yet smart” livelihood programs, 1,000 small-scale livelihood assistance projects, and enhanced vocational education cooperation.⁸ The CIDCA is responsible for implementing these projects.

Regarding the foreign aid statistical system, the Administrative Measures for Foreign Aid state that the CIDCA, in conjunction with the implementing departments, is responsible for establishing a system for collecting and compiling statistical information on foreign aid.⁹ The foreign aid statistics survey system (National Statistics System [2020] No. 50) was registered at the National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2020.¹⁰ The CIDCA, the MFA and the MOFCOM issued the circular on the issuance of the foreign aid statistics survey system in the same year. On the basis of this system, the CIDCA announced the launch of a comprehensive foreign aid statistics survey for 2019 and 2020 in 2021, which covers central government, local governments, social organizations, and enterprises that are involved in providing assistance to developing countries using their own self-financing resources.¹¹ The next survey for 2021 and 2022 are currently underway.¹²

Despite the recent progress mentioned above, several shortcomings remain regarding the reporting of foreign aid statistics. First, the scope of foreign aid statistics continues to apply traditional definitions of foreign aid, comprising grants, interest-free loans, and Chinese government concessional loans (GCL), and does not cover other means of development cooperation. Second, the Chinese government still only discloses aggregated data as official figures every few years in the form of white paper. The latest figure is aggregated amount between 2013 and 2018 in the third white paper and data after 2019 are unavailable.¹³ Third, there are inconsistencies and a lack of information regarding foreign aid volume and financial sources. For example, China does not disclose an overview of how it funds vaccine donations to developing countries. Finally, it remains unclear whether China will disclose comprehensive and disaggregated statistical data periodically despite the introduction of the foreign aid statistics survey system.

To fill these knowledge and information gaps, and to understand the status of China’s recent development cooperation, the current paper aimed to estimate China’s foreign aid from 2001 to 2022 as a proxy for Official Development Assistance (ODA) as defined by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in comparison with major providers of ODA.

Previous research has taken various approaches, as described in the next section. First, China’s foreign aid disbursement flow has been estimated on the basis of the Chinese central government’s final expenditures and other sources. Second, several research institutions have estimated the size of China’s development finance by aggregating Chinese development finance projects on a commitment basis. Third, some studies have estimated the foreign aid volume on a grant-equivalent basis, which is a current measurement of ODA as defined by the OECD DAC.¹⁴ ODA was adopted by the DAC as the “gold standard” of development assistance over 60 years ago, and it remains the main source of financing for development cooperation.¹⁵

Since 2014, researchers at the JICA Research Institute (now called the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development) have estimated and published the size of China’s foreign aid in terms of net disbursement,¹⁶ and the amount of foreign aid since 2019 using a grant-equivalent system.¹⁷ However, the most recent version covers the period from 2001 to 2019 (the data for 2020 represent a projected figure).¹⁸ The current paper attempts to estimate China’s foreign aid through 2022 on a grant-equivalent basis and net disbursement basis. The methodology makes use of both statistical and budget data released by the Chinese government and other types of open data from various sources, including international organizations, to cross check the data sources with each other. Current research has attempted to improve the estimates by incorporating some activities or transactions into the estimation process.

The following section presents a literature review, followed by the methodology, results, and conclusions of the current study.

2. Literature review

This section reviews official government statistics, datasets and databases built and maintained by researchers, and previous estimates regarding China’s foreign aid. To date, China has issued three white papers on foreign aid and development cooperation, and has disclosed aggregate figures regarding China’s foreign aid covering the following periods: 1950–2009, 2010–2012, and 2013–2018.¹⁹ The third white paper shows that China’s aggregated foreign aid, consisting of grants, interest-free loans, and GCL had a total value of Ren Min Bi (RMB) 270.2 billion (United States dollars [USD] 42.0 billion).²⁰ As an annual average, this amounts to USD 7.0 billion. Data for three schemes, by regions and by income group, are included in the official figures, but all figures are totals over a 6-year period. These figures only cover traditional foreign aid three schemes which are funded by the budget item “Foreign aid” in an aggregated manner, and do not cover financial contributions to international organizations under the budget item “International organizations.”

The DAC estimated China’s gross concessional flows for development cooperation including bilateral cooperation, which were estimated on the basis of budget data (the final accounts of central level public budget expenditure for foreign aid) released by the Chinese Ministry of Finance (MOF), and concessional flows for multilateral cooperation, which were estimated on the basis of information from multilateral organizations.²¹ The latest figures only cover bilateral gross concessional flow, amounting to USD 2.9 billion and USD 3.1 billion in 2020 and 2021, respectively.²² Similar to estimates by the DAC, previous research has estimated China’s foreign aid volume on the basis of official data from the Chinese government.²³ Institute of International Development Cooperation at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the MOFCOM examined China’s international development cooperation status from 2013 to 2022 using China’s foreign aid budget data.²⁴

Some researchers expanded the scope from ODA to a broader concept of official development finance to estimate China’s volume of development finance.²⁵ The Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center released the China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) database in 2020, currently covering the years 2008–2021, mainly focused on loans given by the CDB and China Eximbank.²⁶ On the basis of the CODF database, China’s development finance declined in 2021 after a peak in 2016.²⁷ AidData first released the Global Chinese Development Finance (GCDF) dataset in 2017, which included loans, grants, and technical cooperation, and released versions 2.0 and 3.0 in 2021 and 2023, respectively. ²⁸ The version 3.0 tracked the project base commitment data from 2000 to 2021 with three grant elements including one based on a grant-equivalent measure. By defining data as ODA-like, Other Official Flows (OOF)-like and Vague in this dataset, AidData estimates that China’s development finance is predominantly OOF-like, and that the volume of the ODA-like commitment amount is approximately one-tenth of the total development finance. By including short-term emergency rescue loans and swap loans by Chinese institutions, the report also indicates that China’s development finance has not decreased substantially.²⁹

There is some research to shed light on sector-specific trends. Strange used AidData’s GCDF dataset and China’s 20^th-Century Global Development Projects dataset developed by the author’s team and assessed the impact of China’s involvement on global infrastructure construction from historical and comparative perspectives.³⁰ The SPF China Observer of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation reported a data analysis of China’s foreign economic assistance with a project database focused on port projects.³¹ In the health sector, Micah et al. tracked China’s development assistance for health using Chinese government budget data and data from international organizations.³² While McDade et al. used AidData’s GCDF dataset.³³

Additionally, some research projects have sought to capture China’s regional-based development finance. The China-Africa Research Initiative at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, released the Chinese Loans to Africa Database in 2020 on the basis of research conducted since 2007 (currently updated to cover 2000–2022 under the Boston University DGP Center).³⁴ Using this database, Brautigam et al. reported that China’s role as a lender in low-income countries in Africa was rather limited.³⁵ The Inter-American Dialogue established and maintained the China-Latin America Finance Database,³⁶ and the Lowy Institute launched the Chinese Aid in the Pacific database, which was subsequently developed into the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map and the Southeast Asia Aid Map, covering not only China but also all major development cooperation providers in the region.³⁷ The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) provides a database tracking infrastructure projects financed by bilateral and multilateral institutions in the Eurasian continent between 2006 and 2020 under the Reconnecting Asia project.³⁸ Using these dataset, many research on the effectiveness of China’s foreign aid have been conducted.³⁹

Regarding China’s multilateral foreign aid, compared with China’s bilateral foreign aid, fewer studies have examined China’s multilateral development work.⁴⁰ By collating data on China’s engagement with international organizations, Morris et al. analyzed China’s role in the multilateral development system between 2010 and 2021.⁴¹ Using data from UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Baumann et al. found that China is taking an increasingly assertive and long-term approach to the UN development work, such as that with the GDI.⁴²

The literature review in this section indicates that most studies have focused on China’s bilateral foreign aid, and while there are a few studies on multilateral foreign aid, there are limited studies that attempt to comprehensively estimate both bilateral and multilateral foreign aid.

3. Methodology

3.1. Definition of foreign aid

On the bases of the ODA definition, and considering China’s traditional definition of foreign aid and the schemes as means of international development cooperation introduced in the third white paper,⁴³ in the current paper, China’s foreign aid as a proxy of ODA was defined as shown in Table 1 and Figure 1. China’s foreign aid was defined as the sum of (1) grants and interest-free loans, (2) Chinese government concessional loans (GCL), and (3) contributions to international organizations as multilateral foreign aid. As a reference point, preferential buyer’s credits (PBC) are also estimated.

Figure 1. China’s implementation structure of foreign aid.

Note: Figure by author.

1. grants and interest-free loans consists of (1.1) grants by the CIDCA through the implementing agencies of the MOFCOM including complete projects, goods and materials, and technical cooperation, (1.2) interest-free loans by the CIDCA through the implementing agency of the MOFCOM, the Agency for International Economic Cooperation (AIECO), (1.3) interest subsidies on GCL, which are deducted from the total amount of foreign aid because this constitutes an internal transfer,⁴⁴ (1.4) grants allocated to and managed by other departments responsible for foreign aid including National Health Commission (NHC), (1.5) administrative costs of the CIDCA, (1.6) government scholarships provided by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to students from developing countries, (1.7) International cooperation against COVID-19 pandemic not covered by other items, and (1.8) debt relief.

2. GCL is long-term, low-interest loans denominated in RMB to developing countries managed by China Eximbank. As GCL’s interest rate is set low, the MOF provides (1.3) subsidies to fill the difference between the lending rate of GCL and the RMB benchmark loan interest rate. PBC is a dollar-denominated state special loan with preferential terms comparable to those of GCL provided by China Eximbank’s own funds.⁴⁵ Although some developing countries such as Cambodia categorizes PBC as ODA, since PBC is export credits which constitutes to non-ODA flows defined by OECD,⁴⁶ this paper only categorize GCL as foreign aid.

3. Contributions to international organizations as multilateral foreign aid consists of (3.1) subscriptions and contributions to international organizations, and (3.2) co-financing facility with international organizations.

Table 1. China’s foreign aid schemes.

Scheme			Institutions	Budget item	Description
(1.1) Grants			China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) through implementing agencies under the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM)	Foreign aid	Complete projects, provision of goods and materials, technical cooperation, Global Development and South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund (denominated in RMB)
(1.2) Interest-free loans (Public and publicly guaranteed (PPG))			CIDCA through the Agency for International Economic Cooperation (AIECO) under MOFCOM	Foreign aid	A tenure of 20 years, including 5 years of use, a 5-year grace period, and a 10-year repayment period (denominated in RMB)
(1.3) Interest subsidies of Government concessional loans (GCL)			Ministry of Finance (MOF)	Foreign aid	Deducted from the total amount of aid (denominated in RMB)
(1.4) Grants managed by other departments			National Health Commission,	Foreign aid	-
(1.5) CIDCA’S Administrative expense			CIDCA	International development cooperation	Could be recorded as ODA
(1.6) Government scholarships			Ministry of Education	International education in China	Scholarships for students from developing countries could be recorded as ODA
(1.7) COVID-19 cooperation outside of the existing scheme			-	-	-
(1.8) Debt relief			Ministry of Finance, etc.	-	-
Export-Import Bank of China
	Public and publicly guaranteed (PPG)
		Two Concessional Facilities
		(2) Government concessional loans (GCL)	China Eximbank based on the framework agreement between two countries and overseen by CIDCA, the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)	-	Interest rates of between 2% and 3% (less than 2% on a case-by-case basis) and a 15- to 20-year repayment period, including a 5- to 7-year grace period, up to 100% of the contract amount (denominated in RMB)
		Preferential buyer’s credits (PBC)	China Eximbank overseen by MOFCOM, MOF, MFA, PBOC, China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (SINOSURE)	-	State special loans to meet political and diplomatic needs and to promote economic and trade cooperation with priority countries, export credit with loan terms equivalent to concessional loans, up to 85% of the contract amount (denominated in USD)
		Buyer’s credit, etc.	China Eximbank, SINOSURE	-	Buyer’s credit with loan terms based on market interest rates, state special loans other than PBC, including resource-backed loans, etc. (in some cases granted on preferential terms, denominated in USD)
	Private non-guaranteed debt (PNG)		China Eximbank, SINOSURE	-	Loans to PPP projects
China Development Bank (CDB)‘s loans (PPG/PNG)			CDB	-	Foreign currency loans, cross-border RMB loans, resource-backed loans with loan terms based on market interest rates (in some cases granted on preferential terms)
State-owned commercial banks’ loans (PPG/PNG)			State-owned commercial banks	-	In some cases, borrowed or guaranteed by developing country governments
(3.1) Subscriptions and contributions to international organizations			MOF, MFA, PBOC etc.	International organizations	World Bank, ADB, AIIB, UN agencies, African Development Bank (AfDB)etc.
(3.2) Co-financing facility with international organizations (AGTF)			PBOC	-	African Development Bank

Note: Table by author.

On the basis of the definition of International Debt Statistics (IDS),⁴⁷ the comprehensive annual external debt stocks and flows data for borrowers managed by the World Bank, interest-free loans, GCL, and PBC are categorized as public and publicly guaranteed loans (PPG). PPG also include China Eximbank’s buyer’s credit with loan terms that are based on market interest rates and state special loans other than PBC, the CDB’s foreign currency loans and resource-backed loans, and loans by state-owned commercial banks, such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to developing country governments or public entities with public guarantees.

In response to the debt vulnerability of developing countries, the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) was introduced in 2020 under the G20 framework. The Chinese government participated in the DSSI and reported that the CIDCA, which is responsible for interest-free loans, and China Eximbank as a policy-based financial institution are bilateral official creditors under the DSSI, with the CDB categorized as a commercial creditor that is outside the scope of the DSSI.⁴⁸ Although China Eximbank (other than GCL and PBC), the CDB and state-owned commercial banks also provide loans with concessional terms for development projects, the current paper did not include these loans as foreign aid.

3.2. Data

Table 2 shows the data, data availability, and data sources for estimation. Major sources of data are Chinese official sources including final accounts of the central government and relevant departments,⁴⁹ and other official sources including IDS, the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) Financial Statistics database,⁵⁰ the source of financial statistics for the organizations of the UN system, Aidflow, a comprehensive development financing data website managed by the World Bank,⁵¹ and annual reports of international organizations. This paper has included data from other sources that are not available from official data sources.

Table 2. Data availability and sources for the estimation.

Scheme	Data availability	Data	Data source
(1) Grants and interest-free loans	Available from Chinese official source	Central level public budget expenditure for foreign aid (final account)	Central government final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform
(1.1) Grants	Need to estimate disbursement amount of interest-free loans,　available from Chinese official source for combined figure after 2010	MOFCOM public budget expenditure for foreign aid (final account) for combined figure of grants and interest-free loans	MOFCOM final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform and MOFCOM website
(1.2) Interest-free loans (Public and publicly guaranteed (PPG))
(1.3) Interest subsidies of Government concessional loans (GCL) (PPG)	Need to estimate except　2012 and 2018–21 available from Chinese official source	National general public budget expenditure for foreign aid: Interest subsidies (final account)	National general public final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform
(1.4) Grants managed by other departments	Available from Chinese official source after 2010	Department public budget expenditure for foreign aid (final account)	Department final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform and website of each department
(1.5) CIDCA’S administrative costs	Available from Chinese official source	CIDCA public budget expenditure for inter-national development co-operation (final account)	CIDCA final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform and CIDCA website
(1.6) Government scholarships	Need to estimate expenditure for scholarship to students from developing countries	MOE final public budget expenditure for international education in China	MOE final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform and MOE website
(1.7) International cooperation against COVID-19 pandemic	Available from Chinese official source	Donations of doses from China	CIDCA. China’s Practice Second Issue. COVID-19 Assistance
(1.8) Debt relief (for Iraq in 2010, (for Iraq in 2010 and Cuba in 2016))	Available from other source	Amount of debt relief	AidData; IMF Iraq: Staff Report for the 2013 Article IV Consultation; Morales, E. Can Cuba Meet its Foreign Debt Repayments?
(2) Government concessional loans (GCL)	Need to estimate except　2004–08 and 2010–14 available from Chinese official source	Disbursed amount (2004–08, 10–14), Outstanding of international cooperation loans (2017-)	Almanac of China’s Finance and Banking; China Eximbank annual reports
Preferential buyer’s credits (PBC)
(3.1) Subscriptions and contributions to international organizations	Available from Chinese official source and other official source	Department public budget expenditure for international organizations (final account)	Department final accounts for each year in the Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform and website of each department; CEB Financial Statistics database; Aidflow; annual reports of international organizations
(3.2) Co-financing facility with international organizations (AGTF)	Available from other official source	Contribution received	AidData; Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF) of African Development Bank (AfDB): AfDB Financial Reports and Annual Reports

Note: Table by author.

3.3. Estimation process

China’s foreign aid on a grant-equivalent basis was estimated from 2015 to 2022 on the basis of the DAC’s methodology mentioned above. The process used in practice is described below. China’s net foreign aid was also estimated from 2001 to 2022.

(1.1) Grants by the CIDCA through the implementing agencies of the MOFCOM, and (1.2) interest-free loans by the CIDCA through the implementing agency of the MOFCOM are estimated using budget data from the MOFCOM foreign aid final expenditure by assuming that the proportion of MOFCOM grants and interest-free loans are the same as the average proportion of 2013–2018 reported in the third white paper.

Regarding (1.3) interest subsidies of GCL, budget data are available for 2012 and 2018–2021. Data for 2022 is assumed to be equal to that in 2021. For other years except 2017, interest subsidies on GCL were estimated by assuming that one-third of the interest rate difference between the interest rate of GCL and the RMB benchmark loan interest rate has been subsidized by the government.⁵² For 2017, the average ratio of the interest subsidies to the estimated interest payments for 2018–2021 (60.3%) was applied. Because it is unclear whether the MOF considered the suspension of interest payments because of the DSSI for the GCL interest subsidy budget, the cost of the DSSI was not taken into account in this estimate. (1.4) grants managed by other departments were estimated using the final accounts of each department. (1.5) the CIDCA’s administrative costs were estimated using the budget item “International development cooperation” in the CIDCA’s final expenditure.

(1.6) Government scholarships for foreign students from developing countries by the MOE were obtained by multiplying the final expenditure on the budget item “international education in China” (as a proxy of scholarships to students from all countries and regions) by the estimated percentages of foreign students from developing countries out of the total number of foreign students. These estimated percentages between 2009 and 2018 were calculated using estimated figures of 61.3% in 2009 and 79.3% in 2018,⁵³ and assuming the same rate of increase during that period. This rate of increase was also used for the 2001–2008 estimates. The final expenditure on international education in China from 2001 to 2006 were estimated using the ratio of the final expenditure on international education in China to central government final accounts of education expenditure in 2007. Because of the influence of COVID-19, the number of foreign students decreased substantially in 2019. The percentage in 2018 was assumed to remain the same from 2019 to 2022.

(1.7) International cooperation against the COVID-19 pandemic was estimated on the basis of the doses of vaccine aid reported in the report released by the CIDCA⁵⁴ and the unit price which was taken from a report published by a securities company⁵⁵ (Table 3). For reference, donations of COVID-19 vaccine doses reported by a consulting firm⁵⁶ and medical equipment and vaccine cooperation on the basis of AidData’s GCDF dataset are shown in the table. In this paper, it is assumed that the medical equipment and technical cooperation described in the CIDCA report were mainly funded by the foreign aid budget of the MOFCOM and the NHC and not monetized. It is also assumed that China’s provision of USD 50 million cash assistance to the World Health Organization for capacity building and public health system development in developing countries was provided through the NHC. A USD 50 million contribution to the UN COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan and a USD 100 million donation to COVAX for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries were assumed to be made by the MFA.

Table 3. Estimation of international cooperation against COVID-19.

Sources	Items	Region/Year	Dosen million	%	Average unit price in 2021	Ex-change rate (RMB/USD)	Esti-mated total value (USD billion)	Financial resouce	Note
CIDCA 2023	Vaccine	Commercial + donated	2,200		50	7.58	16.7		by January 2023, over 2.2 billion doses of vaccines to 120 countries and international ogranizations
		Donated Vaccines in Total	517.94	100.00%	50	7.58	3.9	Upper case: Assuming that vaccines were fully funded by other sources. Lower case: Assuming that the amounts were covered by the MOFCOM and the NHC’s regular foreign aid budget.	to 110 countries and 4 international onrganizations
		Asian countries	253.10	48.87%	50	7.58	1.9
		African countries	239.35	46.21%	50	7.58	1.8
		American countries	18.21	3.52%	50	7.58	0.1
		European countries	6.08	1.17%	50	7.58	0.0
		Countries in the South Pacific	0.65	0.13%	50	7.58	0.0
		International Organizations	0.55	0.11%	50	7.58	0.0		Assuming the rest of vaccine was donated in 2022.
		2021	125.11	24.16%	50	7.75	1.0
		2022	392.83	75.84%	50	7.42	2.9
	Medical equipment	Commercial + donated	Not monetized in this paper						provided billions of pieces of testkits, protective clothing, masks and other anti-epidemic supplies to 151 countries and 13 international organizations around the world and has shipped a total of 5,246 tons of materials.
		Donated	Not monetized in this paper					Assuming that medical equipment and technical cooperation were mainly funded by the MOFCOM and the NHC.	The regular supplies donated include: testing kits for 7.0265 million tests, 3.4794 million pieces of protective clothing, 72.4717 million masks, 2.2453 million isolation eye masks, 10.2225 million pairs of medical gloves, 1.7562 million pairs of medical shoe covers, nucleic acid extraction reagents for 675,800 tests,188,400 surgical gowns 82,345 infrared thermometers and 665,600 protective masks,2,714 respirators, 7,181 oxygen generators, 5,820 oximeters, 302 monitors, and 350 units of medical equipment such as hospital beds.
	Techinical cooperation		Not monetized in this paper
	Contribution to international ogranization		USD 50 million cash assistance to the World Health Organization (WHO), A USD 50 million contribution to the UN COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan and a USD 100 million donation to COVAX for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines					Assuming that the contribution to international organization was made through the NHC and the MFA.
	Local government activities		Not tracked by this paper
(For reference)
Bridge Consulting 2022	Vaccine	Total	328		50	7.42	2.4		Updated until December 2022
AidData	Medical equipment and vaccine	Total					2.9		AidData’s GCDF dataset
		2020					0.3
		2021					2.5

Table by author.

Regarding (1.8) debt relief, the Chinese government’s debt relief measures for Iraq in 2010 and Cuba in 2016 were added to the estimates (Table 2). China also exempted the debt incurred from interest-free loans.⁵⁷ However, the amount of debt relief for interest-free loans is not included in (1.8), because the disbursements of interest-free loans are fully financed by central government expenditure.⁵⁸

As for (2) GCL and PBC, published gross disbursement and repayment data for GCL and PBC between 2004 and 2014 (except for 2009) from the Almanac of China’s Finance and Banking reports were used for each year. The outstanding amounts of GCL and PBC from 2015 to 2016 were inferred from a graph released by China Eximbank.⁵⁹ Because of a lack of sufficient information, total outstanding amounts of GCL and PBC from 2017 to 2022 were inferred from the category, “International cooperation loans” in the business statistics in China Eximbank’s annual reports.⁶⁰ “International cooperation loans” are a loan facility provided to foreign country governments, financial institutions, and companies with sovereign guarantees, or to Chinese companies for overseas contracting projects. It was assumed that GCL and PBC are included in this category (Table 4).⁶¹

Table 4. Estimating outstanding of GCL and PBC (bmillion USD, current prices).

		China Eximbank’s annual reports								Estimate by author
	Year	Total (E) = (A)+(B)+(C)+(D)	Open economy development loans (D)	Foreign trade loans (A)	Cross-border Investment Loans (B)	International co-operation loans (C)	Loans for financial institution cooper-ation (c)	Loans for overseas project contracting (a)	Loans for inter-national sovereign co-operation (b)	GCL and PBC		GCL		PBC
	2014	292.6	59.1	130.4	27.3	75.8	5.0	63.0	6.5	41.1	100%	14.5	35%	26.7	65%
	2015	345.0	76.8	143.1	33.1	91.8	6.8	76.7	6.8	49.9	100%	16.4	33%	33.5	67%
	2016	378.4	90.7	149.7	35.5	102.6	9.3	84.7	6.7	56.9	100%	17.5	31%	39.5	69%
	2017	425.6	133.8	142.6	37.3	112.0	7.9	94.4	6.7	64.9	100%	18.9	29%	46.0	71%
	2018	510.2	172.3	162.7	41.2	133.9	9.9	110.5	9.6	76.3	100%	21.3	28%	55.0	72%
	2019	546.1	195.9	173.7	37.3	139.1	12.7	114.2	8.8	80.7	100%	22.3	28%	58.4	72%
	2020	617.8	246.5	201.4	32.8	137.1	14.8	111.2	8.5	85.0	100%	23.8	28%	61.2	72%
	2021	723.5	204.8	339.2	33.8	145.8	18.8	33.5	86.9	94.8	100%	27.0	29%	67.7	71%
	2022	776.1	213.2	392.5	31.2	139.2	8.6	33.3	90.5	94.7	100%	27.6	29%	67.1	71%

Note: Figure by author. Figures in bold are official figures whereas figures without bold were summed or estimated by the author. Figures in italics were inconsistent with those in previous years

To estimate the percentage of GCL and PBC in the total outstanding amount for each year, a database, tracking GCL and PBC in commitment base between 2000 and 2022 (GCL/PBC database), which was started to develop by author in 2018, was used.⁶² On the basis of the GCL/PBC database, the gross disbursement amounts of GCL and PBC were estimated assuming a 5-year disbursement period for the commitment amount in each year, with no disbursement in year one and the same amount from year two to year five. To estimate repayment amounts, GCL loan terms were assumed to have an interest rate of 2.5%, a 15-year repayment period, and a 5-year grace period from 2001 to 2010, and an interest rate of 2.0%, a 20-year repayment period, and a 7-year grace period from 2011 to 2022. The same conditions were assumed for PBC. The effect of DSSI was considered under the assumption that repayments were suspended in the second half of the year in 2020 and for the full year in 2021. Indicators from IDS including aggregated annual commitment and gross disbursement data by country were also utilized as a reference.⁶³

To calculate the grant-equivalent of loans, the GCL/PBC database was used to estimate the share percentage of disbursement amount by income groups of borrowing countries for GCL and PBC in each year. Subsequently, loan amounts on a grant-equivalent basis and a net disbursement basis were estimated.

Regarding (3) contributions to international organizations as multilateral foreign aid, (3.1) subscriptions and contributions to international organizations consisted of the cumulative amount of expenditure by departments with a budget for international organizations (the budget item “International organizations”). These data were adjusted by the DAC-defined coefficients for core contributions (DAC coefficients). Departments were selected to verify China’s annual contributions to ODA-eligible international organizations from 2010 to 2022, on the basis of the UN CEB Financial Statistics, Aidflow, and annual reports for each organization.

(3.2) Co-financing facility with international organizations notably included the involvement of the African Growing Together Fund (AGTF). In April 2014, the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved the establishment of the AGTF, a USD 2 billion co-financing fund sponsored by the People's Bank of China (PBOC).⁶⁴ Because AGTF projects are largely ODA projects,⁶⁵ the current paper included China’s contribution to AGTF on a grant-equivalent basis.

4. Estimation results

4.1. Bilateral foreign aid: grants and interest-free loans

In this section, the estimation results are described. First, the sum of grants and interest-free loans in the white paper statistics (commitment based) is compared with the sum of final accounts of public budget expenditure of the MOFCOM and other departments. GCL amounts with framework agreements are compared with GCL commitments estimated on the basis of GCL/PBC database. Table 5 shows that 2010–2012 data were similar, and the 2013–2018 data revealed that the GCL data were similar, but the sum of grants and interest-free loans (USD 21.6 billion) was much higher than the central level final expenditure for foreign aid (USD 16.8 billion), representing a substantial difference. There are several possible explanations for this difference. First, the total amount of the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund was USD 3 billion; USD 2 billion was announced in 2015 and another USD 1 billion in 2017 was included in the white paper figure. Assuming the cumulative amount of the actual commitment was USD 0.2 billion on the basis of the number of projects, which was 82 in the third white paper, and the average amount of projects, which was calculated using 21 projects undertaken in 2017, this could explain a difference of at least USD 2.8 billion. Part of the remaining amount may be explained by the time lag of commitment and disbursement of projects. However, other reasons for this difference may also exist.

Table 5. Comparison of White paper statistics with final accounts of public budget expenditures and loan commitments (billion USD, current prices).

Year	Grants and interest-free loans										(South-South Coope-ration Assistance Fund)
	White paper (commitment)				Final accounts of public budget expenditure						White paper	Estimate by author		White paper	Estimate by author
	Total	Grants	Interest-free loans	Grants+ Interest-free loans	Central level	Interest sub-sidies	Central level – Interest sub-sidies	MOFCOM + other depart-ments	MOFCOM	Other ministries	Announced	Actual commitment	Unused balance	Govern-ment concessional loans (Framework agreement)	Commit-ment amount of concessional loans
1950–2009 White paper 2011	59.2	24.5	17.7	42.2										17.0	13.7
2010–12 White paper 2014	13.7	5.0	1.1	6.1	7.1			7.0	6.8	0.3				7.6	7.7
2013–18 White paper 2018	42.0	19.9	1.8	21.6	16.8			15.2	14.4	0.8	3.0	0.2	2.8	20.4	19.5
	100%	47.3%	4.2%	51.5%										48.5%
2019					3.1	0.4	2.7	2.8	2.6	0.2					4.8
2020					2.9	0.4	2.6	2.6	2.4	0.2					1.3
2021					3.1	0.4	2.7	2.7	2.5	0.2					0.1
2022					3.1	0.4	2.7	2.7	2.6	0.1					0.9
2010–12 Average	4.6	1.7	0.4	2.0	2.4			2.3	2.3	0.1				2.5	2.6
2013–18 Average	7.0	3.3	0.3	3.6	2.8			2.5	2.4	0.1				3.4	3.2
2019–2022 Average					3.1	0.4	2.7	2.7	2.5	0.2					1.8

Note: Figure by author. Figures in bold are official figures while those without bold were estimated by the author.

Regarding the consistency between central level final expenditure and the sum of department level final expenditure for the period of 2019–2022, considering interest subsidies which were reported in the national accounts of public budget expenditure for foreign aid which include central and local level expenditure, the figures are very similar. Comparing the average figures of the 2019–2022 and 2013–2018 periods indicates that there was an increase in term of central level final expenditure, whereas the GCL commitment amount decreased.

Figure 2 shows the change in amount for grants and interest-free loans and number of departments that receive foreign aid budget. Between 2019 and 2022, the MOFCOM continued to receive an average of 93.5% of the foreign aid budget while the NHC and other departments received only 4.4% and 2.2%, respectively. The number of departments that receive foreign aid budget increased substantially from 6 in 2010 to 31 in 2018, then dropped to 22 in 2021 and 10 in 2022. This is likely to be partially caused by the activation of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Special Fund announced by China in 2016. The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Special Fund was allocated to multiple departments, including the Ministry of Emergency Management. It is possible that the foreign aid allocation policy has been changed by the MOF to concentrate this item to just a dozen departments.

Figure 2. Grants and interest-free loans (million USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

Regarding government scholarships for foreign students from developing countries, the estimation result shows that the MOE scholarships to students from developing countries quadratically increased between 2001 and 2018. This was mainly caused by the introduction of measures to tilt the MOE scholarships toward neighboring countries and countries along the BRI.⁶⁶

4.2. Bilateral foreign aid: international cooperation against COVID-19

Following the methodology mentioned above, in total, China’s contribution to international cooperation against the COVID-19 pandemic, only accounting for the cost of donated vaccine, was estimated at approximately USD 3.9 billion. However, it is unclear that how much of this was financed by the MOFCOM and the NHC’s regular foreign aid budgets, and how much was financed by other sources.⁶⁷ Thus, two cases are provided. In the upper case, USD 3.9 billion was fully funded by other sources. In the lower case, the amount was covered by the MOFCOM and the NHC’s regular foreign aid budgets.

4.3. Multilateral foreign aid

Figure 3 shows China’s contribution to international organizations by major departments before adjustment using DAC coefficients. International organizations receiving funds from two major departments, the MFA and the MOF, are shown in different shades of red and green, respectively. Assessed contributions to the UN peacekeeping operations budget and the UN’s regular budget are two major components managed by MFA. As China’s assessed contributions increased from 7.921% in 2016–2018 to 12.005% in 2019–2021, and 15.254% for 2022–2024, the budget amount substantially increased.

Figure 3. China’s contribution to international organizations by departments: before adjustment using DAC coefficients (million USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

Regarding the MOF, the largest contribution is the paid-in capital for the AIIB starting from 2015. In total, China provided USD 6 billion as paid-in capital for the AIIB in five annual installments of approximately USD 1.2 billion. China also provided the New Development Bank (NDB) with USD 2.3 billion as paid-in capital starting from 2015, in eight annual installments. China also contributed to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Food and Agriculture Fund, and Global Environment Facility through the MOF. In the case of the World Bank’s concessional window, the International Development Association (IDA), China substantially increased its contribution from USD 161 million for IDA16 in 2011 to USD 1,321 million for IDA20 in 2022.

China also contributes to specialized UN agencies and other multilateral development banks through other departments, including contributions to the Food and Agriculture Organization through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and contributions to the AfDB through the PBOC. As mentioned earlier, the PBOC contributes to the AGTF.

To calculate multilateral ODA, it is necessary to check whether an international organization is regarded as ODA-eligible and multiply the figures by a coefficient on the basis of the DAC rules.⁶⁸ Figure 4 shows China’s contribution to international organizations by major departments adjusted using DAC coefficients. NDB is not listed in Figure 4 because it is not classified as an ODA-eligible international organization by the DAC. Regarding the AIIB, 85% (coefficient) of paid-in capital is classified as ODA under the DAC rules. Although the coefficient of the UN regular budget increased from 18% to 47% in 2019 and 52% in 2021, and the coefficient of the UN peacekeeping operations (PKO) budget increased from 7% to 15% in 2017, their coefficients were smaller than those for the World Bank (100%) and the AIIB (85%), for which the MOF is responsible, and the MFA’s contribution became substantially smaller.

Figure 4. China’s contribution to international organizations by major departments: adjusted using DAC coefficients (million USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

Excluding contributions to paid-in capital for the AIIB and the NDB, the general trend shown in Figures 3 and 4 shows a steady increase in multilateral contributions.

4.4. Overall trend

As shown in Figure 5, China’s foreign aid on a grant-equivalent basis is estimated to have increased from USD 5.2 billion in 2015 to USD 6.4 billion in 2019. This amount is then estimated to have decreased to USD 5.0 billion in 2020. This decline may be related to the slowdown in construction of grant, interest-free loan and GCL-financed projects caused by COVID-19 and decreasing multilateral foreign aid because of the end of contributions to the paid-in capital for the AIIB in 2019. In 2021 and 2022, regarding the upper case, it is assumed that China mobilized other sources for international cooperation against COVID-19. As a result, China’s foreign aid increased again to USD 6.2 billion in 2021 and USD 7.9 billion in 2022. If the lower case is assumed, China’s foreign aid is estimated to be USD 5.2 billion and USD 5.0 billion in 2021 and 2022, respectively.⁷⁰ Regarding GCL, the amount decreased from USD 1.2 billion in 2019 to USD 1.0 billion in 2020 and 2021, and increased to USD 1.4 billion in 2022. This may be because the progress of GCL-financed projects became normalized after 2022. PBC showed a similar trend.

Figure 5. China’s foreign aid as a proxy of ODA on a grant-equivalent basis (billion USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

Regarding net disbursement, a similar trend was observed (Figure 6). Net disbursement increased from USD 6.0 billion in 2015 to USD 7.1 billion in 2019 and declined to USD 5.6 billion in 2020. In the upper case, the amount was USD 6.8 billion and USD 8.3 billion in 2021 and 2022, whereas in the lower case, the amounts were estimated as USD 5.8 billion and USD 5.4 billion in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Figure 6. China’s foreign aid as a proxy of ODA on a net disbursement basis (billion USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

Compared with ODA flows of the major DAC member countries, Australia, and Korea, and the major emerging providers that report to the DAC,⁶⁹ China was ranked in 6th and 7th place in the upper case, and 13th and 12th in the lower case in 2022 on a grant-equivalent and net disbursement basis, respectively (Figures 7 and 8).

Figure 7. DAC and other countries’ ODA and China’s foreign aid on a grant-equivalent basis (billion USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

Figure 8. DAC and other countries’ ODA and China’s foreign aid on a net disbursement basis (billion USD, current prices).

Note: Figure by author.

5. Conclusion

The current paper aimed to estimate a preliminary figure regarding China’s foreign aid as a proxy of ODA from 2001 to 2022 on a grant-equivalent and net disbursement basis, by introducing an upper case and a lower case regarding China’s contribution to international cooperation against COVID-19.

This research involved several limitations that should be considered. First, the estimation method of GCL and PBC need to be improved to make the estimation more accurate. Second, it is necessary to understand the source of funds for international cooperation against COVID-19. Third, it may be helpful to examine whether other flows, such as the China Co-financing Fund for Latin America and the Caribbean managed by the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), a similar co-financing scheme to AGTF, are counted as ODA.

Given China’s recent economic situation, it is unlikely that the foreign aid budget will increase substantially in the near future. Thus, to operationalize the GDI described in the introduction, the mobilization of loans from the CDB, China Eximbank, and the AIIB may provide an opportunity for the CIDCA to expand the scale of its activities. To date, the loan conditions and the planned period of fund utilization have not been disclosed. Assuming the planned period is 5 years, the average annual loan commitment amounts are 1 billion for the CDB, 1 billion for China Eximbank, and 0.4 billion for the AIIB. This magnitude of financing is smaller than the commitment amount of GCL and PBC in the previous period. For the CIDCA, taking debt sustainability into consideration, it is important for loan conditions to be as concessional as possible to make this new international development cooperation beneficial for developing countries.

Overall, it is important to continue to comprehensively examine how China proceeds in improving its development cooperation in both bilateral and multilateral channels.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Kenichi Doi, Long Hanhua Wang, and participants of the review meeting held at Waseda University on January 12, 2024, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this paper. This work was supported by JICA Ogata Research Institute and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 21H00639.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grant [21H00639].

Notes on contributors

Naohiro Kitano

Naohiro Kitano Professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Waseda University. He served as Director General, East and Central Asia and the Caucasus Department, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and Director, JICA Research Institute before assuming his current position. He has been a Visiting Fellow at JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. His fields of research are city and transportation planning and development cooperation.

Yumiko Miyabayashi

Yumiko Miyabayashi Former staff of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). She served as Assistant Director at East and Central Asia and the Caucasus Department, JICA. Her publications include Kitano, N., and Y. Miyabayashi. Estimating China’s Foreign Aid: 2019-2020 Preliminary Figures. JICA Ogata Research Institute 2020, and China Eximbank’s “Two Concessional Facilities”: Current Status and Issues. Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry. 2023.

Notes

1. Rudyak, “The Ins and Outs.”

2. CIDCA, MAF, and MOFCOM.

3. Xu, “China’s Decision-Making System and Interest Groups”

4. CIKD.

5. CIDCA. “Guidelines.”

6. CIDCA, “Speech by Chairman”; CIDCA, “Tang Ying.”

7. Ibid.

8. Xinhua News Agency. “Full Text.”

9. CIDCA, MAF, and MOFCOM.

10. National Bureau of Statistics of China, “Foreign Aid Statistics Survey System.”

11. China International Contractors Association, “Notice on Launching a Statistical Survey on Foreign Aid”; CIDCA, “Round Table on the Launch of the Direct Reporting Platform”; CIDCA, “Platform for Direct Reporting of Foreign Aid Statistics.”

12. Ibid.

13. CIDCA is currently preparing to publish the fourth white paper in 2024; see CIDCA, “CIDCA Holds Seminar on New White Paper on China’s International Development Cooperation.”

14. OECD, “Official Development Assistance – Definition and Coverage.” ODA flows are defined as those flows to countries and territories on the DAC List of ODA Recipients and to multilateral development institutions which are:

i. provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies; and

ii. each transaction of which:

a. is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective; and

b. is concessional in character. In DAC statistics, this implies a grant element of at least

• 45% in the case of bilateral loans to the official sector of LDCs and other LICs (calculated at a rate of discount of 9%).

• 15% in the case of bilateral loans to the official sector of LMICs (calculated at a rate of discount of 7%).

• 10% in the case of bilateral loans to the official sector of UMICs (calculated at a rate of discount of 6%).

• 10% in the case of loans to multilateral institutions (calculated at a rate of discount of 5% for global institutions and multilateral development banks, and 6% for other organizations, including sub-regional organizations).

Loans whose terms are not consistent with the IMF Debt Limits Policy and/or the World Bank’s Non-Concessional Borrowing Policy are not reportable as ODA.

The ODA grant equivalent measure is calculated for ODA flows, as defined above. For loans to the official sector that pass the tests for ODA scoring [conditions i) and ii) above], the grant equivalent recorded as ODA is obtained by multiplying the annual disbursements on the loan by the loan’s grant element as calculated at the time of commitment.

15. OECD, “Official Development Assistance (ODA).”

16. Kitano and Harada, Estimating China’s Foreign Aid 2010–2013; Kitano and Harada, “Estimating China’s Foreign Aid 2010–2013.”

17. Kitano, Estimating China’s Foreign Aid: 2017–2018 Preliminary Figures.

18. Kitano and Miyabayashi, Estimating China’s Foreign Aid: 2019–2020 Preliminary Figures; Kitano, “The Status Quo and Research Project of China’s Foreign Aid.”

19. Information Office of the State Council, China’s Foreign Aid; China’s Foreign Aid (2014); and China’s International Development Cooperation in the New Era.

20. Ibid.

21. OECD, Development Co-operation Report 2015.

22. OECD, Development Co-operation Profiles 2023.

23. Lancaster, The Chinese Aid System; Brautigam. The Dragon’s Gift; Kobayashi and Shimomura, “Aid Volume in a Historical Perspective.”

24. Institute of International Development Cooperation, “China’s International Development Cooperation since 2020.”

25. Chen, “Beyond Donation;” Mitchell et al. Finance for International Development (FID); UNDP, China’s Overseas Development Finance.

26. Boston University GDP Center, China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) Database.

27. Ray, “Small is Beautiful” A New Era in China’s Overseas Development Finance?

28. Dreher et al. Banking on Beijing; Parks et al., Belt and Road Reboot; Regarding the AidData’s methodology, see Custer et al., Tracking Chinese Development Finance.

29. Ibid.

30. Strange, Chinese Global Infrastructure, Elements in Global China.

31. SPF China Observer.

32. Micah et al., “Tracking Development Assistance for Health from China.”

33. McDade et al., “Estimating Chinese Bilateral Aid for Health.”

34. Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center, Chinese Loans to Africa Database; Moses et al., A New State of Lending.

35. Brautigam et al., Risky Business.

36. Interamerican dialogue, China-Latin America Finance Database.

37. Lowy Institute, Pacific Aid Map; Lowy Institute, Southeast Asia Aid Map.

38. CSIS, Reconnecting Asia.

39. Mandon and Woldemichael, “Has Chinese Aid Benefited Recipient Countries?

40. Humphrey and Chen. “China in the Multilateral Development Banks:” As for previous work, for instance, see Zhang and Miao, “China’s Participation in International Multilateral Assistance” as an example.

41. Morris et al., Mapping China’s Multilateralism.

42. Baumann et al., China’s Expanding Engagement with the United Nations Development Pillar.

43. In the third white paper, international development cooperation refers to “China’s bilateral and multilateral efforts, within the framework of South-South cooperation, to promote economic and social development through foreign aid, humanitarian assistance, and other means.”

44. Kobayashi and Shimomura, “Aid Volume in a Historical Perspective.”

45. Chen, “Infrastructure Finance.”

46. OECD, Non-ODA Flows to Developing Countries.

47. World Bank Group, International Debt Statistics (IDS).

48. Total debt service payments suspended by CIDCA and China Eximbank amounted to USD1.353 billion with 23 countries while the CDB signed agreements to suspend USD 748 million on a voluntary basis. See MOF “Written Interview;” Brautigam and Huang.

49. MOF, Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform.

50. UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB). CEB Financial Statistics database.

51. Aidflows.

52. Kitano and Miyabayashi, Estimating.

53. The figures in 2009 and 2018 were estimated using the following data: The number of foreign students from developing countries in 2009 and 2018 were 11,185 (Information Office of the State Council, China’s Foreign Aid) and approximately 50,000 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) respectively. While the total number of foreign students in 2009 and 2018 were 18,245 and 63,041 respectively (MOE website).

54. CIDCA, International Development Cooperation: China’s Practice Second Issue. COVID-19 Assistance.

55. Guotai Junan Securities.

56. Bridge Consulting, China COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker.

57. Acker et al., “Debt Relief with Chinese Characteristics”

58. Kitano, Estimating China’s Foreign Aid II.

59. China Eximbank, Government Concessional Loan and Preferential Buyer’s Credit Brochure.

60. China Eximbank, The Export-Import Bank of China Annual Report.

61. For reference, the sub-category “Loans for international sovereign cooperation” under “International cooperation loans” increased significantly, by approximately 10 times, in 2021 compared with that in 2020, while sub-category “Loans for overseas project contracting” under the same category decreased by approximately the same amount. This change suggests that China Eximbank may have changed the statistics of sovereign loans in the 2021 annual report to make the disclosed information more accurate, and to be consistent with the number it reported to the G20 under the DSSI. For the 2021 annual report, there were other significant changes in business statistical items: the names of sub-categories included in the category “Open economy development loans,” which finance the domestic projects contributing to China’s foreign economic policies, have been replaced with new names. Two of these categories, “Loans for the development of foreign trade enterprises,” and “Loans for the development of foreign trade industrial chain,” have been moved to “Foreign trade business.”

62. Kitano and Miyabayashi, China Eximbank’s “Two Concessional Facilities.”

63. Such as commitment amounts for PPG: “Commitments, public and official guarantees (COM, current USD)” and gross disbursement flows for PPG from official creditors: “PPG, official creditors (DIS, current US$).”

64. To establish this fund, PBOC has mobilized the foreign exchange reserves. The resources from the AGTF are available for a period of 10 years and can be used alongside the AfDB’s own resources to finance eligible sovereign and non-sovereign guaranteed projects in Africa. When the co-financing fund was established, the loan conditions were not determined. Kitano discussed whether the disbursed amount from the AGTF could be counted as foreign aid, and if so, how to estimate them annually as a future research topic (Kitano, Estimating China’s Foreign Aid II: 2014 Update).

65. AidData identified AGTF as a co-financing project (Custer, et al., 2023 Tracking Chinese Development Finance). AfDB identified the flow type, including ODA for all projects, as part of an effort to report its operations to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, a global initiative to improve the transparency of development and humanitarian resources (International Aid Transparency Initiative).

66. Xinhua News Agency. “Number of students from countries along the ‘Belt and Road’ continues to increase.”

67. For reference, DAC member countries reported donations in 2022 of OVID-19 vaccine doses in excess of domestic supply as ODA, with the necessary safeguards, using the OECD recommended price of US$6.66 per dose; see OECD, ODA levels in 2022.

68. OECD. Annex 2.

69. ODA data of DAC and non-DAC member countries are obtained from OECD.Stat. and OECD Data Explorer.

70. In the lower case, in 2022, the amount of international cooperation against the COVID-19 exceeded the amount of the grants and interest-free loans on both a grant-equivalent and net disbursement basis. To simplify the estimation, no additional assumptions were made to consider these discrepancies.