From the outset, China has been characterized as a ‘new donor’ but it is by no means a ‘new’ provider of aid. Since its founding as a leader of the ‘third world’ and of ‘the non-aligned countries’, it has assisted the newly independent nations from a political standpoint. China has also provided considerable aid to Africa, as exemplified in particular by the TAZARA railway between Tanzania and
... [Show full abstract] Zambia, a historically famous aid project of the 1960s that China supported with all its might. But in the 1970s and 1980s the main concern of the international community was aid to China, as the country was then embarking on its path of economic reform, and an open door strategy.