How the African Public Views China’s Aid to Africa

Han Donglin (韩冬临 ) and Huang Zhen’er ( 黄臻尔 )

School of International Studies, Renmin University of China

Abstract: As a vital part of China’s foreign relations, China’s aid to Africa has scored great achievements. Based on data from the Afrobarometer Survey in 2010 and data from the database of China’s aid to Africa in 2000-2010 co-created by the US Center for Global Development and AidData, this paper dissects the macro- and micro-level determinants of the African public’s perception of the effectiveness of aid from China through an empirical analysis. As descriptive statistics reveal, the African public has a highly positive view of aid from China despite country differences. According to our further analysis of a multi-level model, aid recipients with higher levels of democracy and economic development have a more favorable view of aid from China, while the size and sector of aid from China are not correlated with public favorability. At the micro-level, age, gender, education, race and media consumption are positively correlated with the public perception of aid. In conclusion, China must refocus its future aid programs on livelihood and welfare that directly benefit local people, rather than simply increasing the amount of aid. In delivering its commitments to Africa, China must also attach importance to public communication and “telling the China story” in its international affairs to improve its national image and gain more recognition by the African people.

Keywords: China’s aid to Africa, public perception, effectiveness of foreign aid, Africa

1. Introduction

Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has offered extensive aid to African countries without strings attached. After the dawn of the 21st century, China’s aid to Africa reached record highs with its economic emergence and growing bilateral relations. According to data from China’s White Paper on Foreign Aid (2014), from 2010 to 2012, China appropriated a total of 89.34 billion yuan (14.41 billion US dollars) for foreign assistance, 51.8% of which went to Africa. In delivering aid programs, China actively supported African countries in the fields of infrastructure, trade, socio-economic development, poverty relief and welfare.

China’s increasing aid to Africa aroused great interest in its effectiveness. Many countries including the African governments and people speak highly of aid from China. In 2007, then World Bank President Robert Zoellick praised China’s aid and investment in Africa, admitting that “China’s investment in Africa is probably very favorable as it can help African countries develop infrastructure facilities and utilize their own natural resources” (Li Xiaoyun, Wu Jin, 2009). However, critics blame Chinese companies for rent-seeking, exploiting local natural resources and propping up undemocratic regimes (Stephanie, 2004; Halper, 2010).

In the face of controversies, Chinese scholars clarified misgivings about China’s aid to Africa and rebutted the accusations of “neocolonialism.” For instance, based on their analysis of China’s aid to Africa over the past 50 years, Luo Jianbo and Liu Hongwu (2007) concluded that China’s aid to Africa on the basis of sincerity and mutual benefit promoted bilateral relations and lasting friendship. However, none of the existing studies has investigated the subjective view of the African public on China’s aid and the public perception of its effectiveness based on both macro and micro factors. Hence, this paper fills this gap by unraveling how the African public views China’s aid using data from round four of the Afrobarometer Survey (Afrobarometer Surveys), 2000-2010 data from the database of China’s aid to Africa (china.aiddata.org) jointly created by the US Center for Global Development and AidData, as well as other political and economic development databases. Using empirical data, we attempt to analyze how the African public views China’s aid and the determinants of their perception, i.e. the effectiveness of China’s aid to Africa from a recipient perspective.

China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (the Belt and Road Initiative) unveiled in 2013 provides an excellent opportunity for deepening China-Africa economic and trade relations on the basis of mutual benefit. At the 2nd Africa-China Cooperation Forum Summit which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa at the end of 2015, President Xi Jinping emphasized that China and Africa are a community of shared future and proposed to elevate China-Africa relations to comprehensive strategic partnerships. He reaffirmed Beijing’s commitment to embrace the “new era of win-win cooperation and common development” and to provide gratuitous aid of 60 billion US dollars within three years to carry out “ten cooperation projects” that will extensively benefit African countries. In delivering on its commitments to Africa and contributing to world development, China must heed previous experiences and lessons.

According to the definition of OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), official development assistance (ODA) is “those flows to countries and territories on the DAC List of ODA Recipients and to multilateral institutions which are: i.  provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies; and ii.  each transaction of which: a)  is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective; and b)  is concessional in character and conveys a grant element of at least 25 per cent (calculated at a rate of discount of 10 per cent).” Grants or loans to developing countries fall into the category of ODA. China’s understanding of “overseas assistance” is generally consistent with the OECD’s definition, but is broader and more flexible (Davies, 2008).

Aid to Africa discussed in this paper includes two parts, cooperation and overseas development assistance. The former refers to economic and technical cooperation with African countries, e.g. direct investments, while overseas development assistance includes grants, preferential loans, debt relief, interest-free loans and technical assistance. In addition, there are other forms of aid such as humanitarian assistance for famine, natural disasters and other catastrophes and donations by non-government organizations (NGOs). This paper conducts an analysis using data from the database of China’s aid to Africa (china.aiddata.org) co-created by the US Center for Global Development and AidData (Tierney, Nielson, Hawkins et al., 2011). This database is an extensive collection of publicly available or undisclosed project-level data of China’s aid to Africa from Chinese and foreign media reports and other sources and divides China’s aid to Africa into official development aid and non-official development aid based on the type of aid providers. This paper will examine the differences of the effects of official and non-official aid.

This paper is divided into the following six parts. Part 1 provides an introduction. Part 2 describes the background of China’s aid to Africa and examines the characteristics of China’s aid to Africa since the 21st century. Part 3 offers a summary of how the African public views China’s aid and identifies the variables and model of research on the basis of previous studies. Part 4 presents the measurement of data and variables. Part 5 offers an empirical analysis of the subject matters of research based on a multi-tier model. Part 6 gives a brief summary and discussion.

2. China’s Aid to Africa

Since the founding of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2000, China has been intensifying its aid programs to Africa. During 2000-2012, China delivered 2,546 aid programs in 50 African countries, with a total value of aid amounting to 83 billion US dollars. Figure 1 shows the amount of China’s aid to Africa and the number of projects, which increased dramatically since 2007 and especially in 2010.

The surge in China’s aid programs for Africa has been accompanied by a diversification of aid providers. Enterprises, financial institutions and research institutes took an active part in economic and technical cooperation under these programs. Figure 1 shows the various Chinese aid providers to Africa. During 2000-2012, official providers with a government background accounted for more than 70% of aid projects for Africa, dwarfing that of non-official aid. While the amount of official aid shows three- to four-year cycles of volatility, the amount of non-official aid soared amid wild swings from 2002-2011.

China provided various forms of aid to Africa, notably economic aid, as indicated in Figure 2. In general, most of China’s non-economic aid was offered in the form of gratuitous aid or loans. Other forms of aid include debt relief or reorganization, trade- and investment-related aid, technical assistance, scholarships, etc. Among them, trade- and investment-related aid underpinned aid effectiveness.

China’s aid to Africa covers both economic infrastructure (roads, communications and industrial facilities) and public infrastructure (public buildings, hospitals and schools). Figure 3 shows the fields of China’s aid to Africa during 2000-2012 according to AidData, which indicates that most aid went to economic infrastructure. Of the total amount of aid, industrial facilities (e.g. basic equipment, mining and electric power) made up the largest share of 740 million US dollars, followed by roads and communications infrastructure. Excluding unclassified aid funds, the amount of aid for other sectors including agricultural and social services pales in comparison with infrastructural aid while government operation received the least amount of aid.

3. Study on How the African Public Views China’s Aid

Existing studies don’t provide a consistent theory on evaluating how the public views international aid. Hence, this paper references existing theories on the public evaluation of public policy and the effectiveness of international aid in identifying the determinants of international aid policy effectiveness in the public eye. The effects of international aid can be measured in different ways. The most extensive way is to assess the effect of aid using the indicators of economic growth and social welfare. Yet existing studies are still controversial in many ways. For instance, consistent conclusions on the relationship between international aid and economic growth are scant (Xi Yanle, Cao Liang, Chen Yongbin, 2010; Yang Dongsheng, 2007). Some studies found that aid effectiveness is heterogeneous, i.e. each and every component of aid such as the amount, method and type of aid has different effects on the economy of the recipient (Mascarenhas, Sandler, 2005; Cassimon, Campenhout, Ferry, et al., 2015).

Furthermore, the characteristics of aid providers and recipients are vital to aid effectiveness as well. According to the theory of perception of public services, which may also apply to international aid as a public service delivered by a providing country to a recipient country, the perceived effectiveness of China’s aid by the African public may deviate from the actual effect. Due to their subjective impressions that may not reflect reality, the public may draw unreasonable conclusions. With different access to information and media coverage, the public perception of international aid (with the same amount, sources and fields of aid) is inconsistent with the facts (Bouckaert, Van de Walle, 2003). In this sense, the model must reflect the media’s influence on the public perception of aid.

For perception, the public needs background knowledge to make sense of the information and draw conclusions. Education not only encourages the public to participate in politics, but cultivates their political awareness in the first place. A higher level of education means a higher level of political understanding and cognitive abilities. Therefore, the effect of education must be included in the model as well.

Other determinants of public perception include income, ideology, gender, age and region. First, an individual’s socio-economic status is a key factor at play. Perceptions vary across income groups. As found in a previous study (Swindle, Kelly, 2005), the unemployed or low-income groups normally have a poor rating of public services. Ideology is another determinant of how the public views policy-making. Due to different personal values, individuals may have different views on specific policies. According to an analysis of the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) in 2000, conservatives are more likely to be influenced by political trust and change their view on government spending (Rudolph, Evans, 2005). The third determinant is gender. According to a study on political trust, women’s views tend to be more positive (Christensen, Laegreid, 2005). Lastly, age may also influence public perception but the result of such influence is inconsistent (Stipak, 1979). In addition, significant urban and rural differences across Africa should also be controlled in the model.

At the macro level, we select country-level data. Previous studies about the effectiveness of international aid concluded that the amount, model and type of aid may all influence aid effectiveness, and we adopt this assumption in this paper. In addition, the levels of economic development and democracy are also at play. Public view of international aid, which is a macroeconomic policy, is related to the recipient country’s overall level of economic development. According to the theory of public perception of macroeconomic policy, the strong demand and proactive expectation of the public for a country’s economic development will influence how the public views the government and its policies (Miller, Listhaug, 1984). Previous studies also found that the perception of the overseas public on China’s national image depends on the recipient country’s level of economic development and democracy (Page & Xie, 2010). As revealed by studies on political trust, in countries with different levels of democracy, the degree of public political trust and views on specific policies may vary. A higher degree of democracy corresponds to a higher level of public trust and support for macroeconomic policies (Rudolph, Evans, 2005).

On the basis of the above-mentioned theoretical studies, we believe that how the African public views China’s aid is influenced by an array of factors at micro and macro levels. Micro-level factors include employment, education, gender, age, region and ideology. Macro-level factors include the differences of China’s aid to Africa (in terms of amount, source and field) and the levels of recipients’economic development and democracy.

4. Data and Variables

4.1 Data and Variables

Data showing the attitudes of African public towards China’s aid are from round four of Afrobarometer Survey (Afrobarometer Surveys). To analyze the determinants of how the public views the effectiveness of international trade, this paper employs data from the AidData database of China’s aid to Africa

4.2 Variables

The dependent variable in this paper is the public comments of China’s aid to Africa. In round four of Afrobarometer Survey, the specific question (Q98H) is as follows: “In your view, how much help does China offer to your country?” Answer for respondents varies from “Do nothing, no help” to “Help a lot” on the Likert scale. For the convenience of analysis, we assign values of 0-3 to the answer.

4.3 Independent variables

Public comments of international aid are subject to an array of factors. They range from personal factors such as personal socio-economic status, level of attention to public affairs, level of education and public participation in politics to national-level factors such as the variable of China’s aid to a country, therecipient country’s level of economic development and level of democracy.

Individual-level variables are selected from round four of Afrobarometer Survey, including age, level of education, employment status, gender, race, type of residence, living conditions, ideological tendency and media consumption. Among them, age is the real age of respondents in 2010; level of education is the length of education for respondents; employment status is divided into whether or not the respondent is currently employed (currently unemployed=0, currently employed=1); type of residence is divided by urban or rural areas (rural=0, urban=1).

The indicator of personal living conditions is the comment of the respondent on his or her living conditions, ranging from “Very poor” to “Very good” on the Likert scale, to which the values of 1-5 are assigned. Personal ideological tendency and the level of freedom are measured by three indicators including elections, military involvement in government and rulers. The score of personal ideology is obtained by assigning values to the answer and aggregating the scores of individual indicators. Similarly, we have selected a series of indicators of media consumption in the questionnaire to measure the level of personal media consumption and aggregate various indicators to arrive at the score of personal media consumption.

For variables at the national level, we have selected the variable of China’s aid to Africa, including the amount of aid, number of aid projects, sources of aid, fields of aid and the level of economic development and democracy for recipient countries. Variable of China’s aid to Africa is based on the data of China’s aid to 19 African countries during 2000-2010 from AidData database. We have divided China’s aid into official and non-official aid. Level of economic development is the aggregate GDP of African countries in 2009 and the level of democracy is based on the indicator of democracy measured by Polity Project.