Food for Thought Lecture: Gregory Chin "China as Foreign Aid Donor: Motivations and Global Leadership Capacity"

China’s increased presence across the Global South has given rise to broad-ranging public interest and concern. Some analysts now ask whether China’s activity as an "emerging donor" threatens the international donor community, or whether it can be socialized into the community? Drawing on field research conducted for the International Development Research Centre in summer 2007, Gregory Chin will discuss the motivations behind China’s rising foreign assistance activities, and China’s leadership capacity in this area of global affairs. He will examine China’s new international influence in the area of foreign aid, and factors that limit its influence.

Speaker Bio:

Gregory T. Chin is a Senior Fellow at CIGI, and is involved in CIGI's China and World Economy, and BRICSAM Economic Diplomacy Projects. 

He is a Faculty Associate of the York Centre for Asian Research, and a member of the Advisory Board of the North Korea Research Group at the University of Toronto.  Dr Chin is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Department of Political Science at York University (Canada), where he teaches global politics and East Asian political economy.  He has held a visiting fellowship at Peking University (1997-98).

Prior to joining York University in 2006, Dr. Chin served as a diplomat in the Canadian Embassy in China, responsible for Canadian foreign aid to China and North Korea.  From 2000 to 2003, he served in the China and Northeast Asian Division of the Canadian International Development Agency, and the Bureau of North Asia and Pacific Affairs in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.  Dr. Chin has been a consultant to the International Development Research Centre and the Canadian International Development Agency. He recently completed a collaborative research project for IDRC on the Role of Emerging Donors in Development Assistance.