Why cooperate with others? Demystifying China's trilateral aid cooperation

ABSTRACT

This article examines China's motivations for trilateral aid cooperation in the context of its seemingly assertive diplomacy in recent years. Previously known for its preference for bilateral aid delivery, China, however, is increasingly conducting trilateral cooperation with western donor states and UN agencies. By employing constructivism and cognitive learning theories, this paper focuses on two perspectives: China's calculation of national interests and international engagement, and is structured around two case studies: UNDP's advisory role for China on development cooperation, and China–US trilateral aid cooperation. It argues that strategically, China is putting growing emphasis on its identity as a growing great power in the development sector, using trilateral cooperation to build its global image. Technically, China's four-decade long external engagement has promoted changes in its ideas about aid cooperation, thus reinforcing its desire for cognitive learning to improve its aid performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese foreign policy
• foreign aid
• trilateral aid cooperation
• global image building
• cognitive learning

Acknowledgments

The author would like to express sincere thanks to Dr Graeme Smith at the Australian National University for his comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This strategy was proposed by Deng Xiaoping in April 1992.

2. The fieldwork sites included Australia, Cambodia, China, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. These countries were involved in China's trilateral aid projects (Table 1).

3. Some donors use the term ‘triangular cooperation’ while China prefers to use ‘trilateral cooperation’.

4. Some scholars such as Deborah Bräutigam mentioned that China's South–South cooperation with the UN and FAO can be traced back for decades. However, China is starting to emphasize the trilateral nature of its cooperation with multilateral agencies in recent years, and is contributing more resources to this trilateral modality.

5. Although the examples in this paragraph are not directly linked to foreign aid, they have played the role of convincing the Chinese government that cooperating with traditional donors could be beneficial for China, including in the foreign aid sector.

6. It is not contradictory that China is keen to learn from traditional donors but not taking the lead. The logic is, these partners began to show growing interest in Chinese aid after the 2006 China–Africa summit and thus approach China for trilateral cooperation. As a response, China agreed to pilot this modality, believing that participating in trilateral projects raised by external partners could serve China's interest of global image building and cognitive learning.

7. Trust building takes time. For instance, as a development expert mentioned, many MOFCOM officials were not very receptive when USAID sent Jennifer Adams as the first Development Counsellor to China in September 2008.

8. According to the Chinese government, China's core interests include state sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity and national reunification, China's political system established by the Constitution and overall social stability, and the basic safeguards for ensuring sustainable economic and social development.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denghua Zhang

Denghua Zhang conducts research on Chinese foreign policy and foreign aid especially the trilateral aid cooperation. He has published articles on these topics. He is in the College of Asia & Pacific at the Australian National University.