Hidden Strings Attached? Chinese (Commercially Oriented) Foreign Aid and International Political Alignment

Räss, Damian; Ren, Wanlin; Wagner, Patrick (2022). Hidden Strings Attached? Chinese (Commercially Oriented) Foreign Aid and International Political Alignment. Foreign Policy Analysis, 18(3) Oxford University Press 10.1093/fpa/orac010

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Does Chinese foreign aid buy votes in the UN General Assembly and if so how?
We focus on the effect of China’s commercially-oriented foreign aid, the dominant form of Chinese aid, which the literature has shown to be driven by economic considerations.
Even though China emphasizes the principle of ‘non-interference’ in domestic affairs, we expect Chinese aid to come with ‘hidden strings’ attached.
We find that Chinese commercial aid flows lead to recipients’ foreign policy alignment with China.
We further find this effect to be conditional on regime type: democracies strongly align with China in response to such flows while autocracies do not respond so.
Our results suggest that China’s foreign aid yields political influence, but in a way that differs from other donors.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	02 Faculty of Law > Department of Economic Law > World Trade Institute 10 Strategic Research Centers > World Trade Institute
UniBE Contributor:	Räss, Damian, Ren, Wanlin, Wagner, Patrick James
Subjects:	300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 380 Commerce, communications & transportation 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 340 Law
ISSN:	1743-8586
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Language:	English
Submitter:	Mario Sgarrella
Date Deposited:	15 Jun 2022 16:07
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 16:20
Publisher DOI:	10.1093/fpa/orac010
Related URLs:	Organisation
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170139