Fatma Tanis

But China is

changing its approach.

And that's something that I've been looking into because of these, a lot of the criticism around the way that it does its aid has been hampering its reputation.

And so they've been taking an approach that's slightly more similar to what the US had been doing, which is to fund these small projects here and there to win

hearts and minds they actually call them small and beautiful projects which you know go from any like there are various different you know building a bridge in an island or refurbishing maternal ward in Zimbabwe helping

You know, medical supplies get into a Latin American country.

And so at a moment when the US is moving away from its model of aid and moving more toward a bilateral version, you see China moving the other way.

And that's something that's really interesting to watch.

Absolutely.

And I think there's something interesting there because the way that governments like the U.S.

and China do aid, I mean, there's always an element of it being self-serving.

But I think the way that China did it was so obvious that, you know, people viewed in many places like Kenya...

And others, they viewed Chinese aid as suspicious, like, okay, you're building a support, but what are you going to get from us?

That kind of transactionality was so, so obvious in a way that it wasn't with US aid.

And I think now China is moving toward a more subtle approach.

subtle form of aid.

But I think it's still very much eyeing the positive returns that it's going to get.

Because when China gives something to, you know, when China builds a bridge in an island, there's still positive gains for China.

People will view it positively, and that's still a gain.

I don't think that China's new model has sort of... I think it's still new in that sense.