A new “Administrative Measures of Foreign Aid” was promulgated by the Chinese authorities today, setting the rules of China’s foreign aid administration. It replaces the previous aid administration measures released in 2014. What’s new? A thread. 1/ cidca.gov.cn/2021-08/31/c_1… It clarifies the role of China International Development Agency (CIDCA), and the division of labor btw CIDCA & Ministry of Commerce (MofCom), the previous overseer of foreign aid. The role of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in foreign aid is also more explicitly acknowledged.2/

Happy to share my latest working paper published by @SaisCari! I call for greater attention to the agency of China's construction & engineering contractors in driving its overseas finance, instead of seeing them as derivative of China's financial power.1/
static1.squarespace.com/static/5652847… I also show how the international contracting industry has been carefully cultivated by the state in the past four decades, as it's considered a strategic instrument for the internationalization of China's industrial capacity. 2/

A landmark document. It replaces the two White Papers on China's Foreign Aid, and adopts the new term of "International Development Cooperation." Not just a semantic change reflecting the name of the new agency, but also based on a whole set of theorizing China developed in...

https://twitter.com/AGhiselliChina/status/1348106657260310529

...recent years. Most interestingly the idea of “正确的义利观” (roughly translated as "the correct philosophy on 'yi'--public good, and 'li'--interest), which is lost in the English version. The Chinese version says "重视和照顾其他国家的利益需求，重义轻利、舍利取义," ...

nber.org/papers/w26050
Finally got to read this famous paper on global “hidden debts” to China. Authors find huge gaps between China’s officially reported aggregate overseas lending and direct loans extended to many developing countries, as compiled from various databases. 1/ Authors explain the gap with the “circular” lending strategy where Chinese loans are distributed directly to Chinese contractors in China, therefore no cross border capital flows actually took place, nor were they recorded (p.8). However, I remain doubtful. 2/

I have a contrarian view on this. Allow me to elaborate. I do think “culture” matters here, in the sense of “political culture.” Tocquevillian sociological analysis of why people organize themselves in certain ways and how they approach public affairs is still useful.

https://twitter.com/dalzell60/status/1123432675736469504

I think it will serve both countries well if we all have a better understanding of each other’s political culture. Political culture is a result of political system, and vice versa. China and Taiwan may share many cultural roots, but our political cultures are v. different now.