• Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    FTR, China (as the big communist-style economy) seems to be one of the smaller donors among the big economies to international aid programmes for both food and healthcare.

    The US (until the schmuck) was the biggest by far for food contributions via the WFP, with the EU and individual donors making up the majority. Healthcare seems more balanced contribution-wise (not so much from the US)

    Obviously it is hard to get exact numbers. In particular, China also has its own aid programme too. Estimates are of USD 5 billion to USD 8 billion per year (1,000 million) … a total for all aid.

    Sure, aid is also used for leverage (soft power), but there certainly seems to be a historical pattern of the capitalist superpowers helping to feed the world, despite it often still not being enough…

    It will be interesting to see if China has stepped up, with the US cutting back under trump.

    edit: In a world where leaders and governments put the needs of people first, one wouldn’t need as much aid, of course.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      USAID was a tool of imperialism, not charity. The food “aid” it gave was specifically to underdevelop food production in the global south to force reliance on the US Empire, which expropriates vast sums of wealth through imperialism. China doesn’t participate in imperialism nor unequal exchange, and as such countries that trade with China and join BRI actually develop, rather than remain underdeveloped and overexploited by the west.

    • pineapple@lemmy.ml
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      20 hours ago

      It’s important to consider where this aid is going. In the US most of it’s forreign aid over history has been gone to fund verious wars, such as most recently the war in ukraine and the war in gaza, where particularly the war in gaza is going towards funding genocide, definitely not something I would consider a worthy cause.

      Compare that to china which is specifically spending it’s money on helping the global south develop and lift developing countries out of poverty. It has been building infrastructure projects and giving grants mainly in africa but also in asia.

      • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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        15 hours ago

        You are talking about military aid, which is something else. Eg. Israel gets military aid, Gaza gets food and medicine. Pre-trump, there were reductions and slow-downs of the former based on intelligence reports, and attempts to guarantee the latter, trying to limit the civilian humanitarian crisis of Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack on Israel. Hamas opened pandora’s box.

        On Ukraine: Many countries throughout the world are supplying both direct and indirect military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine so that it may continue to defend itself against an illegal war of aggression, initiated by russia against a peaceful Ukraine. Pre-2014 saw ukranians and russian speaking ukranians living and working side by side (including in the east and in crimea). Conflicts were primarily driven by elites in politics and business, and not borne by ordinary citizens. After russia invaded in 2014, a russia perpetrated genocide of Ukranian culture began in all occipied regions. Rigged “elections”, oppression of proud Ukranians (forced relocations, imprisonment, social restrictions) along with forced conscription (DPR/LPR, later Crimea too). Peace destroyed on a political whim by a neighbouring country. This initial invasion led to the militarization of Ukraine, whose military was small and weak in 2014. Russia then expanded the war in 2022, attempting and failing a complete takeover of Ukraine. The number of civilian casualties skyrocketed as a result, along with military casualties. Millions of lives destroyed, all because of russian political decisions.

        My opinion: Russia fears the prosperity and anti-corruption efforts that will come with EU membership. NATO is a bogeyman for russia, while the real risk to russia comes from a prosperous independent Ukraine, hence the desire to keep a foot on its throat.

        China? As already stated, they aren’t a particularly big contributor to the world’s humanitarian aid given their economy… they are mostly doing business deals for influence. China is the up and coming superpower, and saw an opportunity while the US focused elsewhere. While Europe pays to keep migration crises at bay (often excacerbated by russian and US involvement), China reaps the reward of pragmatic engagement with any country, democracies and despots alike. Good for them, I guess.