Despite its reputation, Chinese aid is quite effective

CHINA is one of the world’s largest providers of foreign aid. But it has a reputation as a rogue donor: stories abound of shoddy projects, low environmental standards and mistreatment of workers. A hospital built by the Chinese in Luanda, the capital of Angola, developed alarming cracks and had to be rebuilt. Aid is widely thought to have been diverted for arms purchases by Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. The list goes grimly on.

Stories do not abound, however, about who gets China’s aid and what it goes on. The government says that it spends about $5bn a year on assistance to other countries. But it has no aid ministry comparable to, say, Britain’s Department for International Development. Most details of the aid programme are kept secret, perhaps because the largesse is unpopular domestically. Many Chinese think that their country is too poor to give handouts and the money ought to be spent at home. When the health ministry tried to investigate whether Chinese projects in Africa made people healthier, the rest of the government flatly refused to co-operate.