The Past in the Present of Chinese International Development Cooperation

ow can China still claim to be a developing country when it is one of the biggest contributors to international development cooperation? I am asked this question a lot, most recently by a German parliamentarian. It appears that in the imaginative geographies of the West, a country is either a donor and thus developed or a recipient because it is developing (and poor). It is still generally overlooked that the origins of China's international development cooperation date back to the early days of the People's Republic of China (PRC). For most of its existence, the PRC-like India, for that matter-was simultaneously donor and recipient. Despite often being called a 'new' 80 MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2021