China's Development Finance to Asia: Characteristics and Implications

This paper examines the determinants of China's development finance to developing countries with a focus on Asia from 2000 to 2012. It uses a recent version of China AidData, one of the most reliable and publicly available data sources that systematically collect and differentiate different types of China's official development financial flows. This paper differs from previous studies in two aspects that: (1) it analyzes a wider range of developing countries, moving beyond earlier research largely limited to Africa; and (2) it examines regional variation in China's motives for development financing. The findings show that China's allocations decision for concessional development flows, or ODA, has mixed motives of humanitarian, commercial and strategic interests. It is noteworthy that China's ODA appears not to be in competition against, but rather in a complementary form to, established donors in this period. Yet substantial regional variation is observed, suggesting different regional dynamics are at work. On the other hand, it is found that China's allocations decision for less-concessional development financing largely follows commercial considerations. This paper also provides detailed discussion of the trends in China's development finance to Southeast Asia, which is an Asian region critical for China's economic and foreign policy interests. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of possible shift in China's overseas development finance strategy since 2011.