4 - Follow the Money

Summary

The dataset introduced in this book includes thousands of Chinese government- financed development projects. This chapter begins to analyze these data at the cross-national level and addresses a basic question: Which types of projects does China finance around the world? We provide a detailed overview of the allocation of Chinese development finance based on key variables such as destination countries, flow types (such as grants, loans, technical assistance, debt forgiveness, or sectors). The dataset enables us to distinguish between Chinese-financed aid and debt, and this distinction reveals that China’s donor-to-banker shift occurred in the 2000s following the implementation of the “Going Out” strategy. More generally, this chapter uses our new dataset to demonstrate the value of separating out aid and debt projects and show how different countries have different experiences receiving Chinese projects. In providing readers with an aerial global view of the “known universe” of China’s international development finance projects since 2000, the chapter also situates China’s development finance in the context of that of other major donors.