Explaining motivations of China’s emergency aid

As reoccurring natural and man-made disasters continue to cost lives and inflict suffering, different forms of humanitarian aid and relief assistance remain a consistent necessity in the international community. With an increasing number of donors providing such relief, a question arises how emerging donors participate and contribute to humanitarian efforts. This thesis explores an aspect of this topic by utilizing the core international relations theories, realism, liberalism, and constructivism, to determine motivations behind China’s “emergency humanitarian aid”. Though each theory offers alternative explanations for China’s emergency aid behavior, a congruence analysis was used to determine the theory which best explains the motivations. The thesis analyzes 140 emergency response cases for 31 countries between 2000 and 2015. Among the competing theories, the findings suggest realism offers the most compelling explanation for China’s provision of emergency aid.