Global China Data

This dataset captures 23,816 projects and activities across 142 low- and middle-income countries supported by grants and loans from official sector institutions in China worth over $1.2 trillion. It tracks financial commitments over a 24-year period (2000-2023) and provides details on the implementation of funded projects and activities over a 26-year period (2000-2025). An accompanying report, Chasing China: Learning to Play by Beijing's Global Lending Rules, analyzes the dataset and debunks popular myths about the true scale, scope, and composition of China’s overseas lending and grant-giving portfolio.

Users should be aware that AidData has produced two constituent datasets, each with different geographic coverage: the China’s Loans and Grants to High-Income Countries Dataset, Version 1.0 (CLG-HIC 1.0) and the China’s Loans and Grants to Low- and Middle-Income Countries Dataset, Version 1.0 (CLG-LMIC 1.0). The records included in these datasets are mutually exclusive (i.e., a given project/activity appears in one dataset or the other, but not both) and interoperable (i.e., both datasets use the same variable names and definitions). China’s Global Loans and Grants Dataset, Version 1.0 (CLG-Global 1.0) combines the two into a comprehensive version for those who wish to analyze China’s entire overseas lending and grant-giving portfolio. For further information about the scope of the datasets, please refer to Tracking Loans and Grants from China to Low-, Middle-, and High-Income Countries: An Application of AidData’s TUFF 4.0 Methodology.