Global China Data

AidData’s Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0

Precise geospatial features extracted from OpenStreetMaps (OSM) are available for AidData's Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0. Projects for which OSM features are available have links to them included in the main dataset (click the download button above); or, you can download geoJSONs of project boundaries from this GitHub repository.

Download from GitHub: ‍

geoJSONs of project locations in AidData's Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0

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Summary

This uniquely granular dataset captures 13,427 development projects worth $843 billion financed by more than 300 Chinese government institutions and state-owned entities across 165 countries in every major region of the world from 2000-2017.

Official Citation

For academic purposes:

Custer, S., Dreher, A., Elston, T.B., Fuchs, A., Ghose, S., Lin, J., Malik, A., Parks, B.C., Russell, B., Solomon, K., Strange, A., Tierney, M.J., Walsh, K., Zaleski, L., and Zhang, S. 2021. Tracking Chinese Development Finance: An Application of AidData’s TUFF 2.0 Methodology. Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William & Mary.

Dreher, A., Fuchs, A., Parks, B. C., Strange, A., & Tierney, M.J. 2022. Banking on Beijing: The Aims and Impacts of China’s Overseas Development Program. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Please note: Both works count as the official citation for this dataset.

For other (non-academic) purposes:

AidData. 2021. AidData's Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.aiddata.org/data/aiddatas-global-chinese-development-finance-dataset-version-2-0

Date Published

September 29, 2021

Full Description

AidData’s Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0. records the known universe of projects (with development, commercial, or representational intent) supported by official financial and in-kind commitments (or pledges) from China from 2000-2017, with implementation details covering a 22-year period (2000-2021). The dataset captures 13,427 projects worth $843 billion financed by more than 300 Chinese government institutions and state-owned entities across 165 countries in every major region of the world. AidData systematically collected and quality-assured all projects in the dataset using the 2.0 version of our Tracking Underreported Financial Flows (TUFF) methodology.

Funding: This dataset was made possible through a cooperative agreement (AID-OAA-A-12-00096) between USAID's Global Development Lab and AidData at William and Mary under the Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) Program. We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. We also acknowledge that previous versions of the dataset would not have been possible without generous financial support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Humanity United, United Nations University-WIDER, the Academic Research Fund of Singapore’s Ministry of Education, and the German Research Foundation.

Related Datasets

Global China Data

AidData's Global Chinese Official Finance Dataset, 2000-2014, Version 1.0

Published

Oct 2017

This dataset tracks the known universe of overseas Chinese official finance between 2000-2014, capturing 4,373 records totaling $354.4 billion. The data includes both Chinese aid and non-concessional official financing. For geolocated data on Chinese project locations, see AidData's Geocoded Global Chinese Official Finance Dataset, Version 1.1.1.

Related Publications

Policy Report

Banking on the Belt and Road: Insights from a new global dataset of 13,427 Chinese development projects

Ammar A. Malik, Bradley Parks, Brooke Russell, Joyce Jiahui Lin, Katherine Walsh, Kyra Solomon, Sheng Zhang, Thai-Binh Elston, Seth Goodman

2021-09-29

Related Blogs

September 29, 2021

AidData’s new dataset of 13,427 Chinese development projects worth $843 billion reveals major increase in ‘hidden debt’ and Belt and Road Initiative implementation problems

The analysis, based on a massive new dataset four years in the making, includes a special focus on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

September 26, 2021

TUFF Cookies: Students aim for policy impact through hard-hitting research, part one

From loans repaid with the proceeds from cocoa bean sales to payments encouraging North Korea to participate in nuclear negotiations, AidData’s Tracking Underreported Financial Flows (TUFF) team tracks it all.