{"id":45171,"date":"2025-02-07T06:52:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T06:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=45171"},"modified":"2026-07-10T02:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T02:43:16","slug":"us-cedes-ground-to-china-with-self-inflicted-wound-of-usaid-shutdown-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2025\/02\/07\/us-cedes-ground-to-china-with-self-inflicted-wound-of-usaid-shutdown-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"US cedes ground to China with \u2018self-inflicted wound\u2019 of USAid shutdown-Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0shutdown of USAid\u00a0has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US\u2019s chief rival, China, analysts have said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result of the sudden 90-day suspension of USAid funding \u2013 which accounts for 40% of global foreign aid \u2013 has been chaos: employees locked out of offices, humanitarian shipments left to rot, and lifesaving assistance stopped. Around the world, development programmes previously assisted by the USAid are panicking,\u00a0warning of disastrous risks\u00a0of escalating\u00a0famine, death and disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"people<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s plan involves the merger of the more than 60-year-old\u00a0USAid\u00a0into the state department, shrinking its workforce and aligning its spending with Trump\u2019s priorities. But analyst<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The US is handing] on a silver platter to\u00a0Chinathe perfect opportunity to expand its influence, at a time when China\u2019s economy is not doing very well,\u201d said professor Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat Trump is doing is basically providing China a perfect opportunity to rethink, to renew soft power projects, and get back on track to transglobal leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than one analyst described the shuttering of\u00a0USAid\u00a0as a \u201cself-inflicted wound\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global dynamics have been dominated by the ongoing US-China competition and a key battlefront is in the development sector as Washington and its allies vie against Beijing for influence in the global south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, the Chinese government created the standalone China International Development Cooperation Agency, or China Aid, to streamline China\u2019s spending, including its foreign investment programme, the belt and road initiative (BRI). Beijing doesn\u2019t disclose foreign aid budgets but a study by William & Mary\u2019s Global Research Institute found China lent $1.34tn to developing nations between 2000 and 2021, mostly through the BRI. The new agency would \u201cfurther the effectiveness of aid as a key foreign policy instrument\u201d, according to a government press release at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While China Aid operates differently to USAid, by focusing more on loans and highly visible infrastructure projects rather than partnering with local organisations, both agencies have similar objectives \u2013 spreading their respective government\u2019s soft power and influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s particularly focused on the Pacific, where the US, Australia and other allies have been\u00a0trying to counter China\u2019s efforts\u00a0to make security deals with the small but strategically located countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Conley Tyler, executive director of the\u00a0Asia Pacific\u00a0Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue, told the Guardian she knows of at least one confirmed case in the region where China Aid has already stepped in to provide the funds pulled by USAid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe US and Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, we have a strong interest in living in a world of liberal democracies and economies,\u201d said George Ingram, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution\u2019s center for sustainable development and a former USAid official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina, like Russia, is trying to advance an authoritarian world. The total opposite of what our interests are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, any new China Aid support would be mostly rescuing programmes abandoned by USAid, like the example in the Pacific. But down the track that could change, Conley Tyler said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"people<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy biggest worry about China as a development actor is the way it often corrodes good governance and accountability in the country where it works. I don\u2019t have a problem with any country being a development party \u2026 it\u2019s a wonderful thing. But the way China does aid\u00a0can have a sort of corrupting effect\u00a0on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was now also likely to be greatly reduced bargaining power for recipient nations. With USAid gone, programmes which previously reaped the benefits of two superpowers competing to fund their projects might just have to take what they can get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have to significantly increase funding of the foreign aid levels in order to replace the US as leader in this field,\u201d said Huang. \u201cAnd \u2026 its narrative about international development, about how altruistic China is, becomes more convincing. So that also helps boost China\u2019s soft power quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conley Tyler said the impact of the USAid suspension is far worse than what\u2019s being reported because many programme workers are hoping if they keep quiet, funding might be restored at the end of the 90 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even if it is, broadly, the trust is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho is going to allow themselves to become dependent on US assistance if it\u2019s fickle, if it doesn\u2019t distinguish between allies and adversaries, if it could just be turned off on a political whim?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0shutdown of USAid\u00a0has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US\u2019s chief rival, China, analysts have said. The result of the sudden 90-day suspension of USAid funding \u2013 which accounts for 40% of global foreign aid \u2013 has been chaos: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[10618,6850,5274,3347,6263,1953,7960,6369,7421,7234,10873,10347,11403,9198,5196,6621,4313,6458,6428,9643,2264,12634,8251,12773,8995,5910,10954,9343,2959,9974,6565,3399,12085,96,10313,6431,3457,5655,12477,8840,12151,9262,6348,2354,36,594],"class_list":["post-45171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-actor","tag-aid","tag-asia","tag-australia","tag-beijing","tag-canada","tag-case","tag-chaos","tag-chinese","tag-death","tag-dependent","tag-diplomacy","tag-disease","tag-economies","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-executive-director","tag-famine","tag-foreign-aid","tag-fund","tag-government","tag-health","tag-humanitarian-aid","tag-increase","tag-infrastructure","tag-initiative","tag-international","tag-investment","tag-japan","tag-leadership","tag-loans","tag-melissa","tag-nations","tag-china","tag-professor","tag-release","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-shutdown","tag-strong","tag-suspension","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-washington","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45174,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45171\/revisions\/45174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}