China’s Covid-19 Aid Diplomacy in 2020: Patterns and Motivations

Summary This article investigates the determinants underlying the Chinese Covid-19 global humanitarian aid campaign in 2020 by statistical analysis on a novel author-made dataset that tracks Chinese aid across the globe in 2020. The results show that many existing Chinese humanitarian aid practices first followed a policy of near universalism of aid, but then resumed more traditional forms of Chinese humanitarian aid targeting the Global South on a bilateral basis in the latter half of the campaign. Aid was allocated based on mixed motives that included humanitarian calculations, but also a more short-term diplomatic calculus typical of disaster diplomacy and other non-humanitarian factors. Chinese humanitarian aid needs to be considered as an important public diplomacy tool as it can be used to reward closer partnerships with China and penalise their absence.