The Trump administration’s assault on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its alleged waste, corruption, and insubordination has faced criticism on legal, humanitarian, and pragmatic grounds. The latter argument, advanced by a former Republican director of the agency, among others, holds that USAID has significantly boosted America’s global image and influence, and that its absence would leave a vacuum that rival powers, particularly China, will be eager to exploit. Peter Martin reported on these concerns at Bloomberg:
The move has ground one of the engines of the country’s geopolitical influence to a halt and created an opening for rivals like China, which Washington has long presented as an unreliable and predatory partner for the developing world.
“Trump’s actions are weakening American global leadership and influence,” New Jersey Senator Andy Kim told Bloomberg. “Our assistance abroad helps fight disease and stop starvation and famine, but it’s also a tool to stave off the expansionist reach of authoritarian leaders in China, Russia, and Iran.”
[…] “Although Beijing’s willingness to plug a multibillion-dollar hole in foreign aid is likely limited, it is already Africa’s top investor and trading partner, and the freezing of US aid means an opportunity to consolidate its economic and political influence,” according to Bloomberg Economics.
[…] One Chinese official said the US withdrawal from foreign aid is an act of self-sabotage that could cut Washington off from potential partners, while another expressed confidence that funding would ultimately return because of the importance of aid to US global influence. [Source]
Beijing may not be ideally placed to exploit any new opening. At South China Morning Post, Ralph Jennings reported on the prospect of China’s Belt and Road initiative expanding into the space left by USAID, but noted that the BRI has itself been somewhat scaled back, and that "Chinese officials have begun to use the term ‘small but beautiful’ to describe projects under the initiative."
One possible reason for the limited willingness pointed out by Bloomberg is the domestic backlash to Beijing’s past foreign expenditures. The text below is taken from the China Digital Times Lexicon: 20th Anniversary Edition ebook, which highlights and explains 104 key terms from Chinese online discourse over the past two decades. This entry focuses on a derisive nickname for Xi Jinping based on his perceived enthusiasm for liberally splashing Chinese taxpayers’ money around the world while many citizens are struggling at home. Resentment was widespread even in 2016, when China’s economic rocket engines were still blasting. Now, with the economy sputtering and associated frustrations rife—as expressed in several other Lexicon entries—a sudden expansion of China’s external spending would likely prove even more controversial, regardless of its strategic benefits.
Big Spender (大撒币 Dà Sābì)
“Big Spender” is a nickname for Xi Jinping deriding his investment in foreign countries and playing on the near-homophony between the phrases “throw money around” (撒币 sābì) and “stupid cunt” (傻逼 shǎbī). Bitter jokes about Xi’s profligate spending abroad started in October 2015, when Xi and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed on “up to £40bn” in trade and other deals during Xi’s visit to the U.K. By 2021, Chinese loans and grants for overseas infrastructure over the previous 18 years amounted to some US$843 billion.
Despite China’s status as the world’s second biggest economy and its remarkable achievements in eliminating extreme poverty, China has high levels of income disparity, and hundreds of millions of its citizens are still profoundly struggling. The government’s largesse abroad is therefore controversial: there is widespread resentment at the prioritization of China’s global standing over the needs of the people at home whose labor generated its wealth in the first place. Chinese citizens are not only unable to choose where the money goes, but are not even allowed to know, as the sums involved are not officially disclosed. In 2022, for example, Beijing hailed its forgiveness of 23 interest-free loans to 17 African countries, but did not disclose their total value.
The image of China’s government as a lavish benefactor on the global stage is incongruous with persistent warnings abroad of Chinese “debt-trap diplomacy.” That narrative is itself a red herring according to analysts such as Deborah Brautigam, who has written that the “real challenge” to developing nations from Chinese infrastructure investment comes from pervasive rent-seeking and cronyism, rather than predatory lending. These issues naturally do nothing to alleviate public frustration with money being channeled abroad.
CDT first detected that “Big Spender” was blocked from Weibo search results on January 2, 2016. “Throw money” (撒币 sābì) was also blocked from Weibo by April 5, 2016. In 2018, a censored blog post archived at CDT Chinese noted the apparent restriction of Weibo comments beneath news posts on Xi’s pledge of US$60 billion in support to Africa at a summit in Beijing. In some cases, comments were blocked entirely; in others, only supportive ones—for example, praising the aid as fair repayment for African nations’ role in bringing the P.R.C. into the United Nations—could be seen.
