China defends donations to Africa
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Global Times, August 11, 2011
China has always provided food aid and humanitarian assistance to African countries, and that amount has increased annually, Chinese analysts said Wednesday, as the US criticized China's aid to the region as being too little.
According to Fox News, the US is stepping up aid to the drought-stricken Horn of Africa in spite of deep deficit problems, while Russia and China have "snickered on the sidelines" about the US cash crunch, and are "giving pennies on the dollar" to what the US has committed.
The report said that the US is the largest contributor to the global pool of donations meant to help millions of starving people in East Africa, with the country approving $565 million in humanitarian aid for the region so far this year.
However, China and Russia are not matching them in donations, as China has pledged $14 million and Russia has so far put up only $1 million, it added.
Xu Weizhong, deputy director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times that although the China's economy has grown rapidly, its GDP per capita is still low due to its large population. Western countries should consider China's national conditions rather than its economic aggregate before making criticisms, he said.
Meanwhile, China sharply raised its foreign assistance this year, and as a developing country, the increases are desirable, Xu said.
He Wenping, director of the Africa Study Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that China has always contributed food aid for refugees in Africa.
It also provides aid to impoverished countries in the region through the assistance of the UN's World Food Program and other multilateral systems and institutions, He noted.
The comments also came as some critics in the US say it is time to reassess US foreign aid, especially to China, since the US is mired in debt.
Last week, US Senator Jon Tester told Congressional leaders to stop sending American taxpayer money to China.
In a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Tester said China has become the second-largest economy, and it continues to benefit from billions of dollars in development programs and infrastructure loans provided through multilateral institutions.
China has undergone a transition from being a recipient country to a donor in the past few years, Xu said. The process can be seen as a change in the country's system, and China's foreign assistance has increased every year, but it is impractical for the increase to come too fast, he added.
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