INTRODUCTION

By any criteria, China is a developing country. Nevertheless, China's international aid programme appears to be significant. It has been giving aid ever since the early 1950s. Since then, the amount and scope of China's aid has increased many times. Aid programmes generally carry a country's major policy goals and its understanding of national interests as well as the international environment. Hence, to a great extent, it reflects a country's foreign policy thinking. This is no exception for China. For example, in the earlier period, China's aids centred on helping the economic and political independence of the newly independent third world countries, especially those of Africa. Such an orientation reflects China's interest in building a “Third World” coalition in world politics during that period.

Through the years, China's aid programmes have shown many discernible changes in its policy goals and policy tools. In recent years, China has provided significant aids to Southeast Asia countries. These include aids to deal with the Southeast Asian financial crisis of 1997, the SARS epidemic of 2003, the bird flu that followed, and the Asian tsunami of late 2004. During the same period, cooperation of various forms between ASEAN and China improved significantly. Is Southeast Asia the next region, like Africa in the 1960s–70s, where China would centre its aid programme? What are the aims of China's aid to Southeast Asia? How will these aid programmes evolve in the future?

This chapter will discuss these questions and issues related to them. After a brief discussion of the various conception of aid, the report will proceed to its three major sections regarding China's aid programme in Southeast Asia. It first reviews the history of China's aid to Southeast Asia and then discusses the characteristics of China's aid to Southeast Asia. The last part contains some discussion of the future trajectory of China's aid to Southeast Asia.

DEFINING AID

There is no unified definition of aid. Generally speaking, foreign aid is provided by a rich country to a poor country for economic development, military security, disaster relief, and other purposes.