The New Face of Humanitarian Aid and Intervention: China and Its Growing Role in the Realm of African Development

Despite being seen by western nations as an adversarial, confrontational and undemocratic nation, the People’s Republic of China has been able to forge a large number of beneficial and lasting relationships with many nations, particular those on the African continent. To do so, China has sought not to distance itself from its international detractors by trying to remake their public image as being democratic but rather by using their knowledge and wealth accrued from rapid industrialization and a massive growing economy seeking new markets to create new and mutually advantageous relationships. To manage such a rapport, China has taken the traditional western practice of humanitarian aid and molded it to fit the Chinese government’s way of operating; Operating not under the guise of solving human rights issues or exchanges of goods for pro-democratic reforms but rather by offering credit, infrastructure, knowledge and time in exchange for oil, mining rights or new and emerging markets. China’s reinvention of the distribution of aid serves as a notice to all states, that traditional western aid might just not be as beneficial or in demand as it once was

___

  • Kate Hodal, “Philippines: Thousands Evacuated as Typhoon Haiyan Strikes”, The Guardian, 8 November 2013.
  • Andrew Jacobs, “Asia Rivalries Play Role in Aid to the Philippines”, New York Times, 15 November 2013.
  • AFP-JIJI, “China Finally Dispatches Rescuers to the Philippines After Aid Criticism”, The Japan Times, 20 November 2013.
  • Jacobs, “Asia Rivalries Play Role in Aid to the Philippines”.
  • UNICEF, “IKEA Foundation Donates Euro 2 Million to UNICEF to Reach Children and Families Affected by Super Typhoon Haiyan with Critical Supplies”, at http://www.unicef. org/media/media_70876.html. (last visited 29 November 2013).
  • Eric Campbell, “Spratly Islands: Foreign Correspondent Visits Remote Reef Flashpoint Where Filipino Marines Hold Out Against Chinese Navy”, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 11 June 2014.
  • BBC News, “How Uninhabited Island Soured China-Japan Ties”, 9 November 2014, at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139. (last visited 19 March 2015).
  • Mary Douglas, “Foreword to the Gift: the Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, by Marcel Mauss”, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. pp. vii-xviii.
  • Ben Carter, “Is China’s Economy Really the Largest in the World”, BBC News, 15 December 2014.
  • Jonathan E. Davis, “From Ideology to Pragmatism: China’s Position on Humanitarian Intervention in the Post-Cold War Era”, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 44, No. 2 (March 2011), p. 224-225. 11 Ibid., p. 225. 12 Ibid., p. 226.
  • Ian Taylor, “China’s Oil Diplomacy in Africa”, International Affairs Vol. 82, No. 5 (September 2006), p. 939.
  • Davis, “From Ideology to Pragmatism”, p. 258.
  • Philippe D. Rogers, “China and United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Africa”, Naval War College Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (2007), p. 76, 80. 17 Ibid., p. 88.
  • Radio Poland, “Polish NGO Pulls out of South Sudan as Violence Escalates”, Polskie Radio Dla Zagranicy, 23 December 2013.
  • Nicholas Kulish, “Doctors Without Borders to Pull Out of Somalia”, The New York Times, 14 August 2013.
  • Judith Achieng, “POLITICS-SUDAN: Non Governmental Organisations Pull Out”, Inter Press Service,1 March, 2000.
  • Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, “Friends and Interests: China’s Distinctive Links with Africa”, African Studies Review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (2007), p. 87.
  • Ibid., pp. 87-88.
  • Ibid., p. 88. 52 Ibid.
  • Xan Rice, “China economic invasion of Africa”, The Guardian, 6 February, 2011.
  • Sautman and Hairong, “Friends and Interests: China’s Distinctive Links with Africa”, p. 88..
  • Ibid., pp. 90-91.
  • Max Rebol, “Chinese Aid to Africa: Filling the Gaps that Others Left”, Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2010), p. 42.
  • Sautman and Hairong, “Friends and Interests: China’s Distinctive Links with Africa”, p. 77.
  • Isaac Stone Fish, “Aiding and Abetting”, Foreign Policy, 12 July 2013, at http:// foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/12/aiding-and-abetting (last visited 12 June 2015).
  • Thomas Lum, “U.S. Assistance Programs in China”, U.S. Congressional Research Service, 2 December 2014.
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Aid Statistics by Recipient and Sector”, at http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats. (last visited 5 May 2015).
  • Rebol, “Chinese Aid to Africa: Filling the Gaps that Others Left”, p. 42. 63 Ibid., p. 44. 65 Ibid., p. 48.
  • Ibid., p. 49. 67 Ibid.
PERCEPTIONS: Journal of International Affairs-Cover
  • ISSN: 1300-8641
  • Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
  • Başlangıç: 1996
  • Yayıncı: T.C Dışişleri Bakanlığı