This book analyzes China's aid program and its connection to the broad range of state-sponsored development activities the Chinese call “economic cooperation.” It explains what the Chinese are doing in their developmental state-sponsored economic engagement in Africa, how they do it, and why they are doing it.

Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim? In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows. Media reports about huge aid packages, support for pariah regimes, regiments of Chinese labor, and the ruthless exploitation of workers and natural resources in some of the poorest countries in the world sparked fierce debates. These debates, however, took place with very few hard facts. China's tradition of secrecy about its aid fueled rumors and speculation, making it difficult to gauge the risks and opportunities provided by China's growing embrace.
This well-timed book, by one of the world's leading experts, provides the first comprehensive account of China's aid and economic cooperation overseas. Deborah Brautigam tackles the myths and realities, explaining what the Chinese are doing, how they do it, how much aid they give, and how it all fits into their “going global” strategy. Drawing on three decades of experience in China and Africa, and hundreds of interviews in Africa, China, Europe and the US, Brautigam shines new light on a topic of great interest.
China has ended poverty for hundreds of millions of its own citizens. Will Chinese engagement benefit Africa? Using hard data and a series of vivid stories ranging across agriculture, industry, natural resources, and governance, Brautigam's fascinating book provides an answer. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with China's rise, and what it might mean for the challenge of ending poverty in Africa.

Review

"The Dragon's Gift looks behind [the] media hype. It offers surprising insights and challenges us to take a new look at Africa's development.... thoughtful and well-researched...the basis for a well-informed, interesting dialogue with Chinese actors."—The Huffington Post

"Brautigam's lively and thoroughly documented account buck[s] the conventional wisdom."—Foreign Affairs

"Deborah Brautigam's superb book The Dragon's Gift offers a window into how China's foray into Africa is playing out on the ground. Rich in vivid anecdotes and informed by the author's three decades of academic work on both China and Africa, the book does many things, and does them all well. It describes how Chinese engagement in Africa has evolved, identifies its drivers, and assays its emerging impact on both economics and governance in nearly two dozen African states. It also looks behind the noble-minded rhetoric to the realities of aid-giving—Western as well as Chinese. The result is a fresh and compelling assessment of China in Africa..."—The American Interest

“The Dragon's Gift's strength is its extensive and varied array of interviews with Chinese government officials in Africa, Chinese factory managers, and other Chinese, African, and third-country participants and observers. Through these interviews, she conveys a rich sense of Chinese perceptions of how their own experience could benefit African countries.”—Finance & Development

“Now comes a timely book by American academic Deborah Brautigam, an observer of Africa and Asia for three decades, which uses personal experiences combined with powerful research to puncture myths and fears that cloud understanding of one of the most important geopolitical shifts since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”—The Independent

"Stands as the key booklength analysis on the subject. ...The Dragons Gift will be for a long time be the lodestone of informed discussion of how China and Chinese interact with Africa and Africa

Deborah Brautigam is Associate Professor at American University, Washington D.C.