The Changing Aid Landscape and the Political Economy of Development in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Much analysis has suggested that Chinese aid to Southeast Asia is shifting the region's developmental trajectory away from progress towards liberal markets and democracy and back towards statism and authoritarianism. This chapter suggests that the situation is more nuanced than this. On the one hand, the region has long been resistant to liberal reform independent of any Chinese aid effect. On the other hand, the changed regional aid landscape has had less of an effect on power relations than this analysis implies.