China’s overseas action to support refugees has grown in terms of donor funding to UN agencies, public statements in multilateral forums, diplomatic engagement, and overseas activities of Chinese civil society. In line with the country’s foreign policy approach, China’s engagement is development-focused and state-centric, although Chinese non-state actors are advancing some new activities as well.
Chinese government agencies, civil society and private sector companies have technical expertise in the areas of disaster response, emergency preparedness, rural development, renewable energy and digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. This technical expertise can support humanitarian responses, particularly in displacement crises linked to climate change. A deeper reciprocal understanding would strengthen relationships between international organizations and Chinese partners that are looking to work together. Options including capacity-building initiatives and joint training should be explored, as has occurred in other sectors such as peacekeeping.
Politically, China has a unique capacity for diplomatic outreach. In addition to its permanent seat on the UN Security Council, China has open diplomatic dialogues with countries such as North Korea, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Practically, China’s overseas presence has also grown due to its expanding contributions to UN peacekeeping and the government-led Belt and Road Initiative, particularly in Asia and Africa. UNHCR and UNRWA acknowledge the political role Chinese diplomats can play in humanitarian crises.
Collaboration with the Chinese private sector presents another opportunity – from the rise in corporate social responsibility and philanthropic activities by Chinese companies to partnerships for the provision of PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Chinese tech giant Alibaba has partnered with the World Food Programme to use machine learning to map hunger. UNHCR also began engaging with the Chinese private sector in a more structured way in 2019, when a private sector partnerships team was set up within the UNHCR office in Beijing.
Despite these upward trends, Chinese humanitarian action on refugee relief should not be overestimated. Refugee relief is not a priority for Chinese engagement in global governance – compared to other areas such as peacekeeping and climate change. China’s contributions to refugee relief are sporadic and limited in comparison to those of leading humanitarian donors. The CIDCA remains in the early stages of development, and China’s technical training of humanitarian professionals in the public sector is ongoing. Looking ahead, the local reception and public image of Chinese organizations operating abroad is an important soft power consideration, especially in countries receiving aid or collaborating with Chinese organizations.
Additionally, refugees continue to be a highly sensitive topic in Chinese society, which could impact the level of domestic support for Chinese contributions to humanitarian responses. In other countries, some Chinese nationals are also registered with refugee status, which could present further sensitivities. Lastly, rising geopolitical tensions between China and Western countries risk hampering opportunities for international cooperation in the refugee space.
The extent to which Chinese humanitarian action is consistent with key international humanitarian principles is also heavily debated. Humanitarianism scholar Miwa Hirono argues that China’s long-established tradition of assistance is based on a set of norms that do not necessarily align with the principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence regarded as standard in the conventional humanitarian system. Unlike Japan, China is not part of donor groups such as the OECD DAC or the Good Humanitarian Donorship initiative. The lack of policy guidelines and support for operations abroad is also a key obstacle to the formalization of China’s overseas humanitarian and development activities.
Indeed, China’s provision of aid to refugees is not systematic, but often ad hoc and occurs through earmarked funding for specific situations that tend to align with other diplomatic priorities. Transparency and consistency are key for the establishment of partnerships to support displaced populations, from emergency relief and food security to healthcare provision and education delivery. Hirono recommends increasing national discussions and exchanges with international humanitarian actors on how to create a policy framework or criteria for China’s humanitarian action, and this also applies to refugee relief. To establish its overseas humanitarian work, China must translate its increasing high-level commitments into sustainable project partnerships and tangible outcomes.
Finally, as China’s engagement in humanitarian crises develops, the humanitarian sector itself is also changing and under pressure due to significant funding gaps, context-specific diplomatic efforts on issues such as humanitarian access, and ongoing widespread challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis. While China becomes more influential, kickstarting debates over whether the country will be a norm-maker or a norm-taker in global affairs, the current humanitarian sector is also evolving. The changing nature and priorities of humanitarian institutions must be considered in conjunction with analysis of China’s objectives and engagement.
For example, UN and Chinese officials have referenced the humanitarian–development nexus model as a potential entry point for Chinese engagement and contributions to global refugee issues. Developing countries host 85 per cent of the world’s refugees, and over half are displaced for more than four years. Humanitarian responses are increasingly considering the development needs of displaced and host communities, leading to a sectoral push towards multi-year programming that integrates short-term humanitarian interventions, as well as more varied sources of development financing in emergency responses – such as multilateral development banks, development agencies and private companies. China’s development-oriented approach to its foreign policy and Chinese organizations’ experience in the development sector – particularly in rural settings – present a potential opportunity for closer collaboration with the UN as it focuses on root causes of displacement and solutions to protracted displacement crises in low-income countries.
Nevertheless, clear differences in approach to the humanitarian–development nexus remain. The World Bank maintains the position that economic development is not sufficient to address forced displacement, given context-specific civil, political and security factors. This is at odds with China’s position, which argues that economic development is at the root of state instability and conflict, and the country is particularly reluctant to become involved in civil conflicts. Differences in approach to the role of economic development in addressing displacement could preclude long-term collaborations, and will be a key question for how China and the CIDCA’s overseas humanitarian portfolios develop in the coming years.
