An Empirical Analysis of China’s Health Aid to African Countries

• In Event: China and Taiwan: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that China’s aid to the African countries is contingent on the request of China’s foreign policy or resources purpose. Nonetheless, it is still far from clear about the major considerations shaping China’s allocation of health aid. To better understand the details on the subject, we provide an overview of the current literature of China’s health assistance to African continent, with special focus on the causes of receiving China’s medical assistance among 54 African countries. This study aims to move one step forward suggesting that the promotion of China’s health assistance is not only influenced by Beijing’s political considerations (Taiwan issues or UN voting), but also by the spreading of epidemic diseases, such as SARS, Ebola, and Covid-19. This study also identifies that, based on the empirical models, there needs systematic and rigorous evaluations of the various factors related to China’s health assistance in order to obtain a deeper understanding of how priority and allocations of China’s health aid are determined. That being said, mapping the transmitted diseases with confirmed cases may shed more light on Beijing’s serious concern of the epidemic issues within different African countries, especially when Chinese government continuously proposed the idea of global governance and active engagement in global health.

Authors

• Charles Chong-Han Wu, National Chengchi University

• Yu-Hsiu Lin, National Chung Cheng University