Category: Foreign aid

What China’s new foreign aid rules can and cannot do

CIDCA’s proposed Measures open a new window into Chinese foreign aid, but stakeholders should manage their expectations

by Ma Tianjie and Zhang Jingjing

China’s newly established foreign aid agency (China International Development Cooperation Agency, CIDCA) recently released draft Measures for the Administration of Foreign Aid to solicit public comments. This move understandably attracts international attention as observers are eager to learn how the new agency would operate, and, more importantly, how any external stakeholders (recipient countries, contractors, civil society, etc.) may participate in and influence the aid process.

Expectations are high. Chinese foreign aid has long been known for its opaqueness. For years, external researchers and observers had to rely on infrequent white papers to get a glimpse of the scope of the country’s aid program. Piecing together fragmented information on Chinese aid to render a more complete picture has become an effort that entire research programs undertake. With the release of the new draft rules, hopes are that Chinese foreign aid may become more transparent and accessible.

But before people get too excited about the opportunity to reshape Chinese foreign aid, it is important to clearly understand what the draft measures can achieve and their limitations.

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External researchers and observers had to rely on infrequent white papers to get a glimpse of the scope of the country’s aid program. Source: china.com.cn

What the draft Measures do

As a new agency born out of the ministerial reshuffle earlier this year, the new Measures define CIDCA’s core business: the process of designing, implementing and reviewing foreign aid projects.

It is worth noting that even though CIDCA is new, the draft Measures are not. Before CIDCA became China’s coordinating government body for foreign aid, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) was the main aid distributor, while multiple other agencies shared bits and pieces of foreign aid responsibilities. The draft Measures are built on an earlier MOFCOM version, which was announced and went into effect in 2014, with new elements reflecting the agency’s expanded mandate.

Beyond taking over the supervision of four types of foreign aid projects previously overseen by MOFCOM (complete projects, material donation projects, technical assistance projects and capacity building projects), CIDCA also assumes an important strategic planning role, drawing up foreign aid strategies and plans at the national level. Plus, the multiple streams of aid-related finance, including grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, will all be subject to CIDCA’s overall budgetary oversight. In the case of South-South cooperation funds jointly set up by CIDCA and other governmental departments, the agency will directly run and distribute those funds.

The draft Measures distills CIDCA’s mandate into a set of concrete policy items that will be created along the process of the agency’s fulfillment of its responsibilities. These include:

  •         A top-level foreign aid strategy (unclear frequency, possibly approved by State Council)
  •         A long-term to mid-term policy plan (unclear frequency, possibly approved by State Council)
  •         Country-by-country aid policies
  •         An annual foreign aid plan (possibly approved by State Council)
  •         A foreign aid management system
  •         Foreign aid international cooperation system
  •         An annual foreign aid budget
  •         Measures to manage the initiation and approval of aid projects
  •         A project evaluation system
  •         A credit rating system for project implementers
  •         Foreign aid statistics collection

Many details are missing from the draft Measures, and some items, such as the process of initiating and approving actual foreign aid projects, require their own stand-alone measures to be fully hashed out. But still, a skeleton of the policy framework that will govern Chinese foreign aid in the future is visible from the draft.

Understanding the constraints of the draft Measures

Promising as they are, the draft Measures have a few built-in limitations that would put clear boundaries around ways external stakeholders may interact with Chinese foreign aid.

The first and foremost limitation lies in its relatively low legal force according to the Legislation Law. The draft Measures rank as a “departmental rule” issued by a ministry/agency under the State Council. Within the hierarchy of the Chinese legal system, laws passed by the National People’s Congress are bestowed with the highest legal authority. Beneath them are regulations created by the State Council (the Cabinet). While rules promulgated by government departments and local provincial people’s councils are lower on the legal ladder.

In principle, lower-level regulations and rules cannot go beyond what higher-level laws authorize them to do. In the case of CIDCA’s draft Measures, as a departmental rule, their legal force is circumscribed by a few higher-level laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, China’s Law of Administrative Permission, Law of Administrative Penalty, State Council Open Governmental Information Regulation, and Law of Administrative Reconsideration. The draft Measures are also bound by the agency’s approved mandate and duties set by the State Council.

Those higher-level legal instruments erect a wall around the Measures. For instance, many would like to see more accountability built into the Measures by creating stronger penalties for violating rules set by the Measures. Yet, the Law of Administrative Penalty and related State Council rules set a RMB 30,000 ceiling for fines that government agencies can legally impose, which is adopted by CIDCA in the draft. The cap on fines is supposed to serve as a check against the abuse of administrative power. Nevertheless, RMB 30,000, a limit set by the State Council in 1996, is of questionable deterrent power today. In the same vein, CIDCA can only impose two types of administrative penalties: disciplinary warnings and fines. The agency is also not allowed to use the Measures as a vehicle to create new roles for itself. For example, even though stronger Environmental and Social Impact Assessments of Chinese aid projects could be a desirable development, without a State Council authorization for CIDCA to involve the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in the management of foreign aid projects, the agency won’t be able to take on the role on its own. To overcome some of the intrinsic weaknesses of the draft rule, CIDCA would need to muster enough political support to elevate the draft Measures to a higher level (such as a State Council regulation).

What can be improved

As a draft for comment, the draft Measures, in their current form, definitely have much space for improvement. One area that can be improved is information disclosure. And this is not an unreasonable ask. The State Council’s 2008 Open Governmental Information Regulation (China’s freedom of information act) constitutes the legal basis for demanding greater transparency from government agencies. Article 9 of the Regulation requires government agencies to proactively disclose information that “needs to be widely known and participated by the public.” Arguably, dispensing public resources to assist foreign countries deserves public knowledge and participation. In theory, many policy items listed above should be released publicly to keep the society informed of where foreign aid is going. Yet no disclosure related clause currently exists in the draft Measures.

The draft Measures by itself can’t impose criminal liabilities, but it indicates that anyone who violates Chinese Criminal Law and other laws during the licensing and implementation of foreign aid projects may be subject to criminal liabilities. Unfortunately the draft Measures doesn’t echo the second paragraph in article 164 of the Criminal Law, which states, “Whoever gives any property or benefit to a functionary of a foreign country or an official of an international public organization for any improper commercial benefit shall be punished according to the provision of the preceding paragraph.” This provision was added to China’s Criminal Law after China signed and ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption in 2005, but it has never been used to prosecute Chinese persons and legal persons for their foreign briberies. Some Chinese companies, including those who implemented or are implementing foreign aid projects, have been criticized for briberies in Africa and Latin America.

The draft Measures also lack an explicit grievance mechanism for external stakeholders, particularly those affected by Chinese foreign aid projects, to report wrongdoings and submit complaints. This appears to be a backtrack from its predecessor. MOFCOM’s 2014 measures at least included one clause that allows “any individual or entity” to report to the ministry when they find Chinese implementers in non-compliance. Besides pressing CIDCA to reintroduce such a mechanism into the rule, one may also find openings in Chinese administrative laws to challenge certain agency decisions. In theory, “administrative licensing” can be questioned on the basis of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, which grants citizens and organizations the right to plea for reconsideration of permissions that violate their interest. The draft Measures contain a few approval/licensing components. For example, approval of foreign aid projects in the draft Measures is an “administrative licensing” by nature. Whether third parties can trigger a reconsideration petition for such approvals on grounds of affected interest is subject to legal interpretation. But in the past, Chinese civil society groups have successfully used the legal tool to overturn government decisions, such as the greenlighting of problematic Environmental Impact Assessments. It will be interesting to see if such clauses can be activated to bring some accountabilities to Chinese foreign aid in the future.

(Write to Panda Paw Dragon Claw by clicking the “Contact” link at the top of our site if you have any question about the draft Measures.) 

Zhang Jingjing is a Chinese lawyer and Lecturer in Law at the Transnational Environmental Accountability Project, University of Maryland School of Law

Letter from Ghana: Africa embraces its China partnership reluctantly

African leaders, more than a “benevolent” China, should set the tone for Africa-China relations, argues Kofi Gunu

By Kofi Gunu

When I first became aware of China’s growing influence in Africa, I was only ten years old. Ghana was set to host the 2008 African Cup of Nations, the continent’s biggest soccer competition, and work was progressing steadily on a new multipurpose stadium in my hometown, Tamale—one of the tournament’s host cities. Our remote savannah town swirled with rumors about the Chinese construction firm undertaking the project and the files of Chinese foremen who marched chain gang-style to the construction site each morning. I recall my Catholic priest explaining once that the contractor, apparently frustrated with the negative work ethic of his Ghanaian laborers, had replaced all but a few of them with convict labor imported from China.

Later I would learn that this was nothing more than a myth, one of many urban legends concocted by locals trying to make sense of the strangers in our midst. But for a long time afterwards, the imposing Tamale Stadium stood in my young mind as a symbol of China in Ghana and Africa, at once shrouded in mystery and impossible to ignore.

The scale of China’s involvement in Africa is a point of surprising contention. Western politicians and media, alarmed at the significant diplomatic, economic, and military roles China has assumed on the continent, often exaggerate its efforts. Chinese experts, eager to assuage these fears, hasten to cite studies which show that Chinese investment and aid to Africa is safely smaller than the West’s.

However, nothing can obscure the truth that China is Africa’s biggest economic partner now and into the foreseeable future. China is currently Africa’s largest trading partner. Additionally, according to the Bilateral FDI database and McKinsey, China is poised to surpass the US as Africa’s largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) stock within the next decade Chinese official development assistance (ODA) and other official flows (OOF) to Africa together added up to 6 billion USD in 2012, making China the third largest country donor to the continent. Besides, since 2012, loan issuance by Chinese institutions to African governments has tripled accounting for approximately one-third of all new sub-Saharan African government debt.

A recent groundbreaking report from Mckinsey & Company, that sought to evaluate Africa’s economic partnerships globally, showed China among the top four partners for Africa across five key dimensions: trade, investment stock, investment growth, aid, and infrastructure financing.

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Source: Dance of the Lions and Dragons, McKinsey & Company, Jun 2017

To objectively analyze China’s footprint in Africa, we must first arrive where reality is. The reality is that China is indispensable to Africa’s development agenda.

This reality is one that many on the continent acknowledge but with mixed feelings. A recent large-scale public opinion survey showed that ordinary Africans appreciate the infrastructural development that closer ties with China has brought. Chinese-led projects and businesses also employ several million people across Africa. African policymakers, a growing number of them Chinese-educated, increasingly look to China, rightly or not, as a model for catalyzing growth and eradicating poverty.

These positive reviews notwithstanding, legitimate questions persist about the motives behind Chinese assistance. Resource-for-infrastructure deals, which may make perfect financial sense to Chinese bankers, set off loud alarm bells on a continent whose vast mineral wealth has been used to enrich everyone but its own people. Citizens decry a political elite that appears incapable of looking beyond narrow political considerations to safeguard Africa’s interests. With a few notable exceptions, African governments lack defined China strategies, master plans for translating increased investment in priority sectors into sustainable development or for ensuring technology and skills transfer. They are waiting for Chinese firms to take the initiative. This lack of confidence in our leaders, far more than a crisis of explanation as proposed in a blog entry by Shou Huisheng earlier this week, is the main reason Africans remain apprehensive about this budding partnership.

Take, for instance, tensions sparked by the influx of hundreds of thousands of Chinese migrants to Africa in recent years. In Ghana, these tensions are felt most acutely in the small-scale mining sector, where the arrival of Chinese prospectors  with machinery and heavy equipment has transformed a hitherto unsophisticated industry into a major driver of ecological catastrophe. Galamsey, as the practice is commonly known, has caused irreversible damage to protected forests and polluted vital water bodies. Matters got to such a point that the government was forced to impose a blanket ban on small-scale mining last year and to arrest several Chinese operators, over the objections of the Chinese ambassador. But far from being placated, many Ghanaians continue to point fingers at the authorities for permitting Chinese nationals to flout the country’s laws in the first place. To quote a caller on a Ghanaian radio program: “The Chinese government will never allow us to go to their country and trash it. Why does our government allow it here?”

The fate of China-Africa relations depends on Africans like this caller who are willing to hold African governments accountable for protecting the continent’s interests as they engage with China. As African heads of state convene in Beijing next month for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), ordinary Africans are expecting them to show more agency in articulating a clear and well-prioritized China strategy. China’s presence in Africa will produce win-win dividends, not because benevolent China pre-ordains it, but because farsighted African leaders insist on it.

Kofi Gunu is from Ghana. He graduated from Tsinghua University’s Schwarzman College in 2018 with a master’s degree in global affairs and public policy. Prior to that, he held roles at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Global Green Growth Institute. He is currently completing a year of national service in Accra.

 

China in Africa: discovering the “China Model” through empirical evidence

Empirical research depicts a picture of Chinese involvement in Africa different from common perception

By Shou Huisheng

Africa is a continent where many Chinese ideas about investment and foreign aid are being piloted. As a result, China’s experience there is valuable for its involvement in other developing countries, particularly those along the Belt and Road. Since the early 2000s, “China in Africa” has been a major focus of international attention. The focus of the discussion is on the “China model” as reflected by the patterns of Chinese investment and aid. This blog tries to summarize that discussion, and outline how the international community, in particular Western countries view Chinese involvement in Africa. It is hoped that a better understanding of the discussion will help China improve its practices in other developing countries.

Common Misconceptions

Relying on empirical studies and statistics, many Western scholars have objectively evaluated China’s contribution to African development. They recognize that China’s infrastructure investments and foreign aid in African countries have fundamentally changed their developmental path. Many also acknowledge the uniqueness of China’s “unconditionality” approach. They believe that the “no strings attached” method does indeed give agency back to African countries trapped by Western conditional aid in the decades following World War II.

But such views tend to dwell only in academic circles. In government and public opinion, negative perceptions of Chinese aid and investment prevail and persist. In this regard, Rex Tillerson’s comments are quite representative. Before the former US Secretary of State visited Africa in March this year, he made a speech criticizing Chinese involvement in Africa. “Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he told his audience. “When coupled with the political and fiscal pressure, this endangers Africa’s natural resources and its long-term economic political stability.” Later that week, in Ethiopia, he reminded African countries to “carefully consider” the terms of Chinese investments and the “predatory” model behind them.

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Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed disapproval of Chinese involvement in Africa on Mar 6, 2018. Photo courtesy US Embassy in Senegal.

Some experts consider Tillerson’s views to be “singing the same tune” as Hillary Clinton, when she visited Africa in 2011 and 2012, even though things have changed much since then. But such views remain popular today. In sum, the “predatory model”, as understood through such a lens, means three things:

First, that China is promoting neo-colonialism in Africa. It supports proxy regimes, “divides and conquers” African countries, and bases investment and aid decisions on diplomatic and political considerations. Cheap Chinese loans make African countries dependent on China’s economic largess. Chinese investments mainly target primary resources and land, creating an unhealthy economic structure and unbalanced trade in recipient countries. Short-term prosperity may become a long-term trap.

Second, that Chinese investments actively seek corrupt and autocratic governments to work with. Unconditional Chinese aid in fact provides a free pass to these regimes. In other words, China’s autocratic government is actively looking for its own African proxies through aid and investment.

And last but not least, that the Chinese government and its corporations disregard local environmental, social and cultural concerns. They turn a blind eye to labor rights and the interest of minority social groups.

The real model in statistics

The negative perceptions are persistent, but they are not evidence-based. In contrast, some Western scholars have done long-term empirical studies of China’s presence in Africa. They have collected data on Chinese aid and investment, run fact-based analyses and come to conclusions different from popular perceptions. The AidData database developed at William & Mary College, and the China Africa Research Initiative led by Prof. Deborah Brautigam at Johns Hopkins University are two major sources of such analyses. Even though the data quality and methodology could be improved, these quantitative studies do complement the more anecdotal case studies and observations we often see.

Below are a few key observations from the empirical studies:

First of all, Western media has generally overstated the scale of Chinese investment and aid in Africa. People are made to believe that Chinese involvement in the continent is way larger than that of the West. A wide range of figures about the stunning scale of Chinese finances in Africa have been floating around, but many have been proven to be wrong. In addition, Western media often gives the impression that China’s Export Import Bank provides more loans to Africa than the World Bank does, despite the fact that the World Bank remains Africa’s largest development finance provider since 2010. These exaggerations do not just create anxiety in the West. They may also mislead African countries into believing that Chinese loans are easy to get.

The second observation from empirical data is related to resource grabbing. In fact, only 10% of Chinese loans to Africa goes into oil and minerals. And much of that is concentrated in just a few countries. The biggest loan in this area was offered to Sonangol, the state owned oil company of Angola. On the other hand, 56% of Chinese loans flow into transportation, electricity and telecom. In other words, China invests more in African infrastructure than natural resources.

The third notable fact is that roughly one third of Chinese loans require or allow African countries to repay in energy, minerals or agricultural products. China calls such arrangements “resource-backed loans”. These are often the target of “resource-grabbing” criticism in Western media. But in reality, even though the Chinese government and companies purchase large quantities of energy and mineral products, they seldom control the ownership of such resources. For instance, even if China imports 49% of Angolan oil, most of the country’s oil is controlled by American companies, with Chinese firms controlling less than 10%. The main purpose of having loans repaid in commodities is to hedge against financial risks, rather than controlling resources. This is a reasonable arrangement, given China’s own experience of attracting foreign investments with the same approach in the early years of its Reform and Opening. From as early as 1975, Deng Xiaoping encouraged commodity-backed investment deals with Japan, which allowed China to get access to much needed funding for development. China repaid much of those Japanese loans in commodities throughout the 1980s and 90s.

Data also shows that the destination countries of Chinese policy loans are no different from those of the World Bank, despite perceptions that they predominantly go to countries with rich resources and corrupt governments. Between 2000 and 2014, Ethiopia was the second largest recipient country of Chinese loans in the continent. The country isn’t particularly rich in natural resources, and China’s involvement there is mainly in building industrial parks, driven by the country’s large population and potential market size. Over the same period, Ethiopia was also the World Bank’s top borrower in Africa.

There also appears to be no strong correlation between an African country’s political ties with China and the likelihood of receiving Chinese aid and investments. Zimbabwe traditionally has a strong tie with China. However, it does not even make the top ten list of Chinese lending in Africa. Moreover, unlike ODA, China usually does not cancel a country’s loans. Chinese policy banks and commercial banks usually choose to extend a loan or lower the interest rate to deal with payment issues. Even Zimbabwe, widely seen in the West as China’s proxy regime in the region, complained about how difficult it was to get a cancellation of debts. Chinese bank officials have made it clear that they don’t waive debts against market principles.

Orange and Apple

And finally, the data tells us to differentiate numerous types of Chinese finances in Africa. In the West, people tend to group Chinese money all in one basket and consider it all directed by China’s diplomatic and political priorities. But Chinese ODA and commercial loans follow different logic. Statistics from AidData show a very weak correlation between Chinese ODA and a country’s natural resource endowment. It also has very little to do with political systems or governance capabilities. This is in line with the non-intervention principle that China upholds.

Western countries’ ODA tends to go into African countries with large populations. Chinese ODA is not, however, tied to population size. The one clear feature of Chinese aid is that it leans more towards low-income African countries. These characteristics indicate that Chinese foreign aid is more development-oriented than political or commercial-oriented.

Chinese commercial lending, however, is different. The same analysis from AidData shows that it has a much stronger propensity to go after natural resources, thanks to the Chinese market’s large appetite for African resources. They are also more likely to be associated with corrupt and autocratic regimes. Researchers at AidData offered two plausible explanations. First, some Chinese companies and government departments do regard corruption as a “lubricant” to commercial activities, and have brought certain problematic domestic practices to Africa. Another explanation is that Chinese commercial entities are less risk-averse than their Western counterparts, as commodity-backed arrangements and the likes effectively reduce risks in investing in such countries.

Both explanations have some validity. And the two factors could indeed work together. Considering that the economic growth of the continent in the past 20 years has been driven largely by energy and resource demands from China and other emerging markets, rather than the ODA or investments from Western countries, it is reasonable to state that Chinese commercial lending, with its distinct features, are better suited to the pragmatic needs of African countries. Being a “business partner” with corrupt governments is something ideologically repulsive to many Western actors. Convincing Western society that this could be overall beneficial to African development is a huge challenge for China. And for the moment, China should do its best to make its ODA and commercial investments more transparent in Africa.

To be clear, the main reason for the lack of statistics-based, quantitative research on Chinese aid and investment is the low transparency on the side of the Chinese government. Researchers have observed that existing statistics actually tell a quite positive story about China’s involvement in Africa and have suggested the Chinese government to be more upfront with collecting and releasing statistics. But apparently China still has lots to worry about when it comes to transparency (one of the biggest concerns is possibly domestic public opinion, strands of which see China’s involvement in Africa as “handing free gifts to other countries” while many regions of China are still relatively poor). Short-term improvement of the dataset is therefore unlikely. Nevertheless, the government should attach more importance to the matter and begin to invest more into setting a more quantitative and objective basis for assessing Chinese aid and investments overseas. The recent setting-up of China’s international aid agency (CIDCA) is a welcome move to facilitate the process.

Dr. Shou Huisheng is Senior Fellow at the Statecraft Institution, Research Fellow at the National Strategy Institute, Tsinghua University. Dr. Shou received his doctoral degree in political science from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The blog is based on a recent speech he made recently.

China’s climate foreign aid after ministerial re-shuffle

How well can China run its climate foreign aid program outside the UN framework

by Wang Binbin

Editor’s note: Among the numerous types of foreign aid that China gives to other countries, climate aid is one that is still relatively new. First started in 2007, as a way to diffuse increasing international pressure on China for its ballooning carbon emissions, the program has, over the past decade, expanded both in terms of its coverage (from small island states most affected by climate change to a wide range of developing countries across the globe) and its size (from about 10 million USD a year to 300 million based on one UNDP estimation). Just like the AIIB, China’s south-south climate assistance program represents another attempt at reshaping an important aspect of global governance with “Chinese wisdom”. For instance, Chinese climate aid runs outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime, which differentiates obligations of developed and developing countries. Under that system, developed countries put money into the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help developing countries combat climate change. China’s long-standing sensitivity around being recognized as a developing country, combined with its urge to show leadership on a key global issue, has prompted it to come up with its own version of climate aid that is not without institutional challenges. Wang Binbin’s new blog is an update of the latest development under this program, after the recent creation of a “China AID”, in the fashion of USAID and UK’s DFID.

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Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy on climate change, demonstrates cookstoves in Myanmar (Source: Global Environmental Institute) 

One of the most closely-watched changes to come out of China’s recent ministerial shake-up was the creation in mid-April of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), equivalent to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) – agencies responsible for administering foreign aid and development assistance.

Although this sub-ministerial body does not have an official website yet, it got off to a quick start, announcing on May 16 that China would send emergency humanitarian aid to Kenya in response to severe flooding.

Despite its still undefined make-up and responsibilities, observers are already speculating about how the creation of CIDCA will affect China’s overseas aid, the Belt and Road Initiative, and wider South-South cooperation, including China’s climate change foreign aid to other developing countries.

Climate aid with “Chinese characteristics” 

China’s South-South climate cooperation has focused on providing aid to less developed nations commensurate with its position as the world’s largest developing country. The country’s overseas aid has had a climate change component for more than a decade and this has expanded over the years.

In 2012 the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced that funding would be doubled for climate change aid to about US$72 million a year. Subsequently, a project to donate materials to help countries respond to climate change got underway, headed by the NDRC’s Department of Climate Change and funded by the Ministry of Finance. Notably, this included the donation of a meteorological satellite to Ethiopia.

In September 2015, before the Paris climate conference, China stepped up its commitment when Xi Jinping announced a 20 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) South-South Climate Cooperation Fund. Two months later, in Paris, the government clarified its scope: from 2016 China would fund 10 low-carbon demonstration projects, 100 climate change adaptation and mitigation projects, and 1,000 training places in developing nations (the “10-100-1000” plan).

More recently, the 19th Communist Party of China National Congress work report stressed that China would cooperate internationally on climate change to contribute to and lead in the construction of an international “ecological civilization”.

When it comes to international climate governance, China views developed nations as having a responsibility to developing countries, owing to their historical emissions of greenhouse gases. In contrast, China is assisting developing nations out of a sense of climate justice rather than obligation. This has shaped China’s climate aid program, which is “voluntary” and “supplementary”, and stands separate from that of developed nations, which are channeling climate finance contributions through the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a United Nations mechanism to help developing nations counter climate change.

Following the decision by President Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, China’s actions have been closely watched, as its pledge of 20 billion yuan to the South-South Climate Cooperation Fund was part of the Obama-Xi Joint Statement in 2015 that was made shortly before the Paris talks started. In that statement, the US made an equivalent pledge of US$3 billion to the Green Climate Fund. President Trump has said that the US will not honor the US$2 billion that remains to be paid to the GCF, while China appears committed to carry out its promised plan.

The shoe doesn’t fit

Providing direct material aid and training is relatively straightforward. However, other elements of the “10-100-1000” plan had to be implemented within a framework that was not fit for purpose. The mismatch prevented plans going ahead as scheduled.

The first issue was funding. The NDRC is responsible for macro-level planning and has no overseas remit. The Ministry of Finance’s rules require that the NDRC’s South-South climate cooperation spending and procurement take place inside China. The “10-100-1000” plan, therefore, had to be designed to fit that requirement, with the 100 mitigation and adaptation projects limited to material donations – and to those goods that could be purchased in China. This affected both the quality and pace of project delivery.

Similarly, the 10 low-carbon demonstration projects were originally intended to happen in industrial zones or residential neighborhoods in recipient countries, promoting general low-carbon development practices (in planning, management and infrastructure construction). But again, the requirement for procurement in China hindered progress.

Then there were personnel issues. As the only option was to buy goods at home, the NDRC’s Department of Climate Change needed to quickly develop new competences to ensure quality procurement: tendering processes, technical workflows, product standards, financial reporting, working across languages, negotiating, and assessing the needs of different nations. This was clearly too much to expect from a department previously responsible for climate change policy.

The final issue was communication. The domestic role of the NDRC means it has no direct links with other countries and so no way to directly communicate with recipient nations.

While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs traditionally handles overseas relationships, China’s expanding links with the rest of the world mean that the Ministry’s embassies abroad were already stretched. Although willing to help implement the plan, they lacked sufficient capacity to do so.

Faced with these constraints, those in charge had to come up with alternative approaches. For example, in August 2016 the NDRC’s Department of Climate Change toured south-east Asia, with the help of Oxfam, an international NGO, to assess the needs of developing countries. This helped to refine the “10-100-1000” plan and work around the department’s lack of international links.

The Department of Climate Change and the UN Development Program then held a “matchmaking” meeting to connect the needs of developing nations with types of support that China could provide.

In March 2017, China donated clean cooking stoves and domestic solar power systems to Myanmar, with project delivery entrusted to the Global Environment Institute, a Chinese NGO. These moves were all unprecedented.

Opportunities post-reshuffle

The reorganization of China’s cabinet ministries, announced at China’s Lianghui (Twin Sessions) in March of this year, brought seismic changes for climate and environmental governance, with responsibility for climate change reassigned from NDRC to the new Ministry for Ecology and Environment (MEE), which was formally established on April 16. Two days later, CIDCA was created, taking overseas aid responsibilities from the commerce, foreign affairs and finance ministries.

Future South-South climate cooperation is likely to take place within a joint MEE-CIDCA framework. This will help to resolve issues with funding, personnel and international links.

CIDCA is run by former NDRC vice minister Wang Xiaotao (pictured). On April 23, Zhou Liujun, former head of the Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Outward Investment and Economic Cooperation, and Deng Boqing, former ambassador to countries including Nigeria, were appointed as vice-directors. The structuring of the two new bodies should be completed by the end of June.

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The fact that the top three officials for CIDCA have been drawn from China’s powerful macro-economic planning department, its commerce department, and its foreign affairs apparatus bode well for its ability to coordinate with these ministries.

We can expect that arrangements for the “10-100-1000” plan will be improved once governance structures are clearer. While the changes should not have much impact on the more straightforward training program, the 100 adaptation and mitigation projects will be able to deploy a more flexible approach to aid that is not restricted only to material donations procured domestically.

CIDCA will benefit from established overseas aid systems moved over from the Ministry of Commerce (including material aid, turn-key project delivery, technical cooperation and training). This will mean MEE can more easily make use of CIDCA capabilities when designing South-South climate cooperation projects. Researchers also predict that development attachés may be stationed in Chinese embassies to manage China’s overseas aid. This would solve the lack of international links.

Most eagerly anticipated are the 10 low-carbon demonstration projects. Although initial work on these projects was hampered, a lot of planning has been done and resources are in place.

The new framework will allow MEE and CIDCA to work together to better combine aid, investment and trade. And the model of government-set standards to guide private investment and create green investment is regarded by some experienced figures as the ideal model for those demonstration projects.

Three relationships

It is worth noting that China’s arrangements for South-South climate cooperation were not originally limited to the “10-100-1000” plan.

In 2014, China donated US$6 million to support the UN secretariat’s promotion of South-South climate cooperation. In April that year the funding was used as seed capital for a Southern Climate Partnership Incubator (SCPI) announced by Ban Ki-moon. The SCPI is designed to foster partnerships (both bilateral and multilateral) to allow less developed countries to engage in policy exchange, capacity building, and to have access to technologies and knowledge that facilitate climate action.

Combined with the “10-100-1000” plan, China’s use of UN platforms represents a combination of domestic and international approaches to climate change cooperation.

Pushing China’s South-South climate initiative at the UN level has several advantages: it is intrinsically more multilateral, it is not limited by China’s own rigid bureaucratic and financial restrictions, and it takes advantage of the UN’s global reach.

The ministerial shake-up makes efficient implementation of the “10-100-1000” plan possible. Meanwhile, China’s support for South-South climate cooperation under the UN system is growing and starting to attract civil society forces. For example, the Qiaonyu Foundation donated 100 million yuan (US$15.6 million) for South-South climate cooperation, with US$1.5 million going towards running the SCPI.

In January this year the foundation signed an agreement with the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation launching the Qiao plan, which will use the UN to identify potential recipients of funding.

South-South climate cooperation can be expected to take place between the Chinese government and the UN, across Chinese government departments, and between the government and civil society.

If those three relationships promote and strengthen each other, resulting in projects that meet recipient nation needs while furthering mitigation, adaptation, poverty-relief and environmental protection, then South-South climate cooperation will be successful.

 

Wang Binbin is a research fellow at Peking University’s International Organizations Research Institute. Parts of this article, first published on chinadialogue, are taken from the her new book, From Zero to Hero: China’s Transition on Climate Communication and Governance, published April 2018 by the Social Sciences Academic Press.