China’s Belt and Road Initiative and South-South Cooperation

ABSTRACT China often emphasizes the imperialist nature of the North-South development cooperation model and considers it a threat to the Global South. The Chinese administration has officially declared that its development aid falls into the South-South cooperation (SSC) category and is essentially different from North-South cooperation. As an international cooperation initiative proposed by China, The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most concrete example of China’s understanding and practice of SSC. This article critically examines whether and to what extent China’s South-South cooperation offers an alternative to North-South cooperation. Benefiting from examples of China’s aid practices in Egypt within the scope of the BRI, this study argues that China’s aid practices replicate the pattern of the North-South aid relations and the Western imperial practices.