Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the development of Western and Chinese foreign aid since the 1950s and the paradigms that guide each; how the aid has contributed to shaping North-South and South-South relations; and finally, the implications of a more nationalist US foreign aid policy.

Paper long abstract:

The Bandung conference in April 1955, while largely ignored in the West, was important in that it was the first meeting of Southern countries from both Western and Soviet alliances, and those who were 'non-aligned', ot discuss what development meant for them and putting forward the idea of Southern led development. Out of this conference emerged the first tentative steps in South-South cooperation with China's nascent engagement with Africa, which was to grow over the next 60 years.

What I argue in the paper is that the South-South cooperation continues to be driven by a different development paradigm to challenge ideas of Western hegemony and neo-colonialism. Chinese Premier Zou Enlai's emphases on solidarity and mutuality in China's foreign aid relations through his Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (finalised at Bandung in 1955) and the Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance to Other Countries (1964) which are still referred to, has been analysed by Mawdsely (2011) and others using gift theory, in contrast to Western foreign aid theorised as 'symbolic domination' (Hattori 2001).

This paper explores the parallel development of Western and Chinese aid since the 1950s and how they contribute to shaping North-South and South-South development relations. It will conclude with an examination of current aid paradigms in era of the post-Washington consensus and 'Beijing consensus', and the implications of a more nationalist US foreign aid policy under the Trump administration. This paper is a product of an East West Center in Washington Asia fellowship in 2017.