China could be poised to overtake the U. S. as the world’s primary donor of foreign aid to most of the developed world, a multinational group of researchers reported Wednesday.
China could be poised to overtake the U. S. as the world’s primary donor of foreign aid to most of the developed world, a multinational group of researchers reported Wednesday.
“At the very top level, you could say the U. S. and China are now spending rivals when it comes to their financial transfers to other countries,” Bradley Parks, executive director at AidData, told AP on Wednesday.
As part of President Donald Trump ‘s so-called “America First” policy, the former New York businessman has called for significant reductions in foreign aid, prompting international concern and intense criticism from former White House officials and business executives.
However, while China could be set to usurp the U. S. as the leading donor of foreign aid throughout much of the developed world, AidData researchers stressed the country’s lack of transparency meant its aid activities remained “poorly understood.”
The report found that, contrary to criticism from international policymakers that China tended to set up aid projects in order to benefit its own domestic aims, “Chinese aid substantially improves (the) economic growth” of its recipients.
Critics of Chinese foreign aid have long argued that the nature of its spending could allow some countries to avoid democratic reforms because they can simply ask Beijing for cash, while sidestepping the scrutiny of other Western donors.
