CHINA’S FOREIGN AID AND INVESTMENT DIPLOMACY, VOLUME I: Nature, Scope, and Origins. By John F. Copper. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. xi, 282 pp. US$121.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-137-55181-8..
CHINA’S FOREIGN AID AND INVESTMENT DIPLOMACY, VOLUME II: History and Practice in Asia, 1950-Present. By John F. Copper. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. xii, 273 pp. US$121.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-137-55182-5.
CHINA’S FOREIGN AID AND INVESTMENT DIPLOMACY, VOLUME III: Strategy Beyond Asia and Challenges to the United States and the International Order. By John F. Copper. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. xii, 317 pp. US$121.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-137-55183-2.
This three-volume work by John Copper provides a comprehensive and detailed examination of China’s foreign aid and investment diplomacy from the tribute trade to the present. As the title suggests, the lens through which foreign aid and investment are viewed is that of diplomacy, an examination of the aims and purposes of what Copper frequently terms “China’s generosity.” The result of this examination is the illumination of how this generosity has been an important part of China’s strategy to win friends and influence others over a long historical period as well as having a strong moral basis in terms of assisting others. This in itself provides a contrasting starting point from other works which emphasize China’s dealings with dictators and a self-interested quest for resources in return for aid and investment. These latter topics are included and discussed in Copper’s book too but his different starting point leads him to be more sympathetic than many.
Volume 1 provides an introduction to the definitions and measurement of foreign aid and investment, setting out distinctions which are used throughout the book in regional case studies. Also included in this volume are chapters on China’s worldview (which introduces the moral basis for foreign aid and investment going back to the tribute system, and the system of international relations which underpinned it, in which obligation played an important role), China’s economy and the role that foreign aid and investment diplomacy have played in it, and China’s foreign policy.
In volume 2, the four chapters focus on China’s foreign aid and investment diplomacy in Asia, the region that has received the majority of China’s aid and investment, from 1950 to the present. The chapters examine Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Northeast and Central Asia, with a fourth chapter analyzing the “special case” of Taiwan and the use of aid and investment diplomacy to isolate it.
The third volume, like the other two, also contains four chapters, with the first three expanding the regional theme to cover Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Oceania. Of these three chapters, Africa receives two to itself while the other regions share one chapter. The final chapter in the volume is a long concluding chapter which brings the various parts together.
Taken together, the volumes provide an invaluable source for scholars and students interested in the subject matter. The coverage is comprehensive and by providing a longer historical view they offer the reader a more nuanced understanding of contemporary “China’s rise” and “new colonialism” literature, which likes to draw upon some of the same examples and trends for its arguments, such as China’s massive projects building dams, pipelines, and economic zones around the world. Each chapter is detailed, well researched, and well referenced.
The comprehensiveness of the regional studies and the historical span are obvious strengths and result, in part, from the luxury of a three-volume set rather than the standard-length monograph. The downside, as one might expect, is the exorbitant cost of the set. For those working closely in the field, though, it will be a worthwhile source for at least two reasons. The first is somewhat technical but nevertheless important. That is the discussion of the definition and measurement of foreign aid and investment. Copper lays out the data and interpretation problems very clearly and doesn’t hide his view that much of the data is either unavailable or very problematic. He reviews the Chinese and Western/international differences in the concept of foreign aid and the difficulties in creating comparable, reliable data for China. Having made his best guess, he concludes that China’s aid has, in fact, been significantly higher than most estimates put it. Topics such as whether and under what conditions central bank currency swaps, for example, constitute “foreign aid” may seem rather arcane but it is this type of careful scholarship which is needed to get a firmer grasp of the dimensions of China’s foreign aid and the problematic nature of the data that might be reported by international institutions. The blurred lines in practice as to what constitutes foreign aid and what constitutes foreign investment is also a salutary lesson, even more so when we learn that the conceptual differences are blurred too for many Chinese officials.
The second major contribution of the set is in its setting out of the different factors in play in China’s diplomacy with the various regions analyzed. Part of the volumes’ narrative shows how China’s motives changed over time and how foreign aid and investment diplomacy has been subject to various phases in line with its political upheavals and cycles. This will not come as a surprise to readers although here it is still useful to note the various shifts in the composition of aid over time, such as the role of military aid and medical aid in previous phases compared to the dominance of infrastructure in the current period. Copper effectively lays out the transition from aid giver under Mao to the world’s largest aid recipient in 1989 to being now potentially (or actually, depending on source) the largest global foreign aid provider and investor. These phases are accompanied by detailed analysis of the shifts in country focus and policy that went with them. Beyond this, the variation in experiences across the various regions even within the same phases constitutes an interesting contribution. By describing the ways in which China has used aid and investment in the different regions of the world, the book provides a rich analysis and a useful antidote to accounts which tend to treat China as one large, homogenous actor. As examples, we learn that China became actively involved in peacekeeping and, in 2006, “became the largest contributor of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council” (volume 1, 25) in part because the People’s Liberation Army had changed its position on peacekeeping. Of course, the economic ministries have also been heavily involved in the provision of financial aid packages to countries experiencing crises.
There is, therefore, much detail in the regional chapters which scholars will find useful. This is Copper’s strong suit. When he moves to the larger topics of assessing whether China’s aid and investment is “good” or “bad” or is challenging “the West,” the analysis becomes less convincing. At times, Copper comes across as too much of a champion for Beijing in his contextualizing of China’s motives and in his relativism in judging their impacts. At others, however, he seems too keen to provide a contrast between China and other countries. For example, China, we are told, has been “very aggressive in using foreign assistance to help its own economy” whereas, apparently, the United States “has not promoted American business abroad as in the past because its critics find it distasteful if not morally wrong to do this” (volume 3, 192). There is certainly much that could be argued with here. Taken together the volumes do, however, provide us with a sound empirical basis on which to enter such arguments.
Paul Bowles
University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, Canada
pp. 322-324