international system to suit its own aims, and to strengthen its own global influence. The BRI’s broad approach means that it is presented as a priority in several multilateral contexts. Chinese investments can help meet the global demand for investments in infrastructure. At the same time, there are clear examples of China using the BRI as a way to export its industrial overcapacity, and of alternatives from the country in question and other countries being out-competed by attractive financing solutions that combine aid and export credits and are sometimes accompanied by requirements of political services in return from recipient countries. Recently, a number of BRI projects have attracted attention because they have driven the recipient countries into unsustainable debt. Projects have also contributed to environmentally and socially unsustainable investments, as well as political dependence. Within the EU, a number of Member States have received investments under the BRI flag, and in April 2019, Italy became the first G7 country to sign a cooperation agreement with China. China as an aid donor China is becoming more and more prominent in the international financial institutions, while remaining an active borrower from the development banks. In creating the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China has set up a multilateral organisation in which China is the largest owner, and has made efforts to follow best practice in the governance of international financial institutions. China has also become a major aid donor and lender to the development banks’ low-income funds. The importance of aid as a foreign policy instrument has grown in China. A new agency, the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), has been established to manage the growing aid volumes. Through its aid, China has gained increased influence in many developing countries, most of them in Africa. Chinese aid differs from that of traditional aid actors, primarily in that it does not follow the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. China remains outside the global regulatory framework for aid and trade financing that originates from the OECD. Furthermore, China does not distinguish between different forms of aid, and does not publish statistics, either about recipients or aid volumes. The extent to which aid is tied to deliveries from Chinese companies is not reported either. Aid initiatives are often linked to the BRI. China does not make the same demands as older aid donors in terms of human rights, democratic institutions, gender equality, free procurement processes or institutionbuilding, for example, which is seen as an advantage by some recipient countries’ governments. However, there is criticism of the fact that China’s own economic interests steer cooperation to an excessive extent, that recipient countries are placed in unsustainable debt, that recipient countries are selected based on their energy and raw material assets and their suitability as BRI partners, and that recipient countries’ own development agendas are sidelined. 7