China Issues White Paper on Foreign Aid

By staff reporter TANG SHUBIAO

ON April 21, China issued its first-ever White Paper, presenting an overall picture of its foreign aid activities over the past decades. The White Paper, titled China's Foreign Aid, details how, while focusing on its own development, China has fulfilled its international obligations by providing as much aid as possible to other developing countries, especially those with economic difficulties. The White Paper, issued by the Information Office of the State Council, introduces China's foreign aid policy and the financial resources that the aid has drawn upon in the past, as well as revealing China's cooperation in international aid activities.

The White Paper describes China's foreign aid activities as "South-South cooperation" and "mutual help between developing countries," as China is the world's largest developing country. The basic features of China's foreign aid policy are as follows: Unremittingly helping recipient countries build up their self-development capacity; imposing no political conditions; adhering to equality, mutual benefit and common development; remaining realistic while striving for the best as it provides foreign aid within the reach of its abilities and in accordance with its national conditions; keeping pace with the times and paying attention to reform and innovation.

Financial resources provided by China for foreign aid mainly fall into three types: grants (aid gratis), interest-free loans and concessional loans. By the end of 2009, China had provided a total of RMB 256.29 billion in aid to foreign countries, including RMB 106.2 billion in grants, RMB 76.54 billion in interest-free loans and RMB 73.55 billion in concessional loans.

China offers foreign aid in eight forms: complete projects, goods and materials, technical cooperation, human resource development cooperation, medical teams sent abroad, emergency humanitarian aid, volunteer programs in foreign countries, and debt relief.

The geographical distribution of China's foreign aid shows a comparatively even coverage. The recipients cover most developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Oceania and Eastern Europe. About two-thirds of China's aid always goes to the least developed and other low-income countries.

China's foreign aid projects are oriented to agriculture, industry, economic infrastructure, public facilities, education, and medical and health care, with the focus on improving recipient countries' industrial and agricultural productivity, laying a solid foundation for their economic and social development.

In recent years, coping with climate change has become a new area in China's foreign aid. From 2000 to 2009, China held 50 training workshops attended by more than 1,400 people from other developing countries on the development and use of renewable resources such as biogas and solar energy, and small hydropower, as well as forestry management, and desertification control and prevention.

The decision-making power in China regarding foreign aid lies with the central government. The Ministry of Commerce is authorized by the State Council to oversee foreign aid. In order to strengthen coordination of the departments concerned, the ministries of commerce, foreign affairs and finance officially established the country's foreign aid inter-agency liaison mechanism in 2008. In February 2011 this liaison mechanism was upgraded into an inter-agency coordination mechanism.

China's foreign aid is provided mainly through bilateral channels. China also supports and participates in aid programs initiated by organizations like the United Nations, and has actively conducted exchanges and explored practical cooperation with multilateral organizations and other countries in the field of development assistance with an open-minded attitude. Under the framework of South-South cooperation, China will work with all parties concerned to conduct complementary and fruitful trilateral and regional cooperation on the basis of respecting the needs of recipient countries, and jointly promote the process of global poverty alleviation.

As an important member of the international community, China will continue to promote South-South cooperation, as it always has done, gradually increase its foreign aid input on the basis of continuous development of its economy, promote the realization of the UN Millennium Development Goals, and make unremitting efforts to build, together with other countries, a prosperous and harmonious world with lasting peace.