okay, let's go then, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. good afternoon. welcome to this event organized at iris, the institute for european, russian and eurasian studies at the george washington university. my name is marlene lawal. i'm the former director of the institute and currently the director of the illiberalism studies program. in this event today, we will be discussing the geopolitics of aid and how chinese, russian and american covid 19 assistance developed. and as you can guess, it's a very timely topic given the current reorganization and transformation in of us foreign assistance and strategy under

the new administration. i will speak to my millet. shiva is professor of strategy at national defense university here in washington, d.c. she the author of multiple books on the former soviet union and articles she has been engaging with broader audience in the policy world for several years. and her latest book is called entitled covi. 19 humanitarianism geopolitical logics of chinese, russian and american assistance. it's really a great book. you can see here that she wrote with the colleagues that is looking at how assistant rice should be interpreted as part of a geopolitical discourse and as a space for constructive political action by great power and that's what we would be discussing today. so my welcome, i will give you the floor for about 30 minutes. then we will open for q&a discussion. and i welcome our c-span audience also. thank you. my other floor is yours. thank you so much. and i do want to express my

sincere appreciation to all of you for taking the time to join us this afternoon. so those of you who spend your winter holidays here in the job area should remember the early january snow that blanketed the dmv right. so as the east coast experienced some record inches of snow, this year, fires erupted on the west coast and scorched 60 square kilometers of territory in the subsequent three weeks. this kind of natural disasters have become quite common and they are among many consequences of warming. climate and changing weather patterns. in fact, by some estimates today, 20% more people are displaced due to environmental disaster than just a decade ago. and some estimates suggest that by 2050, more than a billion people will be at risk of

displacement due to the compounded effects of environmental crisis wars and civil unrest. so the states have traditionally been very, very important contributors to the overall pool of resources to assist those in need. but as i alluded to in my opening, an example, just the demand, the sheer demand for the lifesaving assistance has grown considerably in the past few years. we've also witnessed that the supply of those resources has shrunk. so i think this gap between the resources that are needed to to help people in need and the resources that are available, this gap will continue to grow in the years to come. again. and this graph i just show in terms of, you know, the orange

part shows what are the estimated resources that are necessary to to to help people worldwide experiencing disasters and what the state the states as the international donors provide it. so humanitarian assistance is a distinct form of assistance. it's different from both developmental aid and security aid in that developmental aid and security aid are the tools of states, foreign policy that are used to pursue various policies, agendas by the governments, humanitarian assistance has kind of unique ethical and normative foundation with roots that go back to the beliefs that emerged in the enlightened era of the 18 century, in that those those enlightenment ideas they bestow the same level of dignity. the same level of humanness to all individuals. and as a conflict, once

humanitarian assistance is supposed to be administered without considerations of ethnicity and nationality, nor politics should be involved. it should be administered on the sheer just based on the level of suffering, whether it's, you know, the casualties, the destruction of the property and so on and so forth. but i am not going to break what have you, any secrets. we know that in practical terms, the levels of humanitarian assistance have departed from this kind of universal humanitarian principles. and again, i'm just putting it up there for illustrative purposes only, though, again, how humanitarian aid must be guided by the principles of humanity, neutrality and impartiality. but there have been significant differences in the volume and type of aid and in the volume of type of covid 19 aid that i wrote in my book about. so, you know, those departure

years from the avowed principles of neutrality, impartiality and universality, and the practice of aid administration was one of the sort of motivating questions for this research and for this book. so we we wanted to understand what motivates countries to give and particular really when the demand for the scarce resources are so high and the resources are so limited. how do the governments make decisions about which lives are worth saving? so these are kind of the motivating questions for the book. and of course, you know, as a researcher, i, you know, looked at, you know, what was the state of knowledge. and i felt that the state of knowledge was not quite adequate. the existing explanations tend to place answers to this question about what motivates states to give to those in need, into one of the three buckets. interest based, need based or merit based? more more over the political discourse surrounding it give

aid given tends to sort of distinguish traditional donors such as the united states, germany, japan, u.k. from the so-called emerging donors. some call them rogue donors like, you know, china, but also brazil, india, south africa. they fall into that category. so so one of the arguments go that the traditional donors like the united states, they are the ones who are more like altruistic and driven by the ethical considerations of the need impartiality, whereas, you know, china, they are driven by political expedience, see the use it as a part of their political agenda. and so a spoiler spoiler, neither the traditional donors nor the emerging ones consistently follow any of this logic. so again, that was another more theoretical kind of reason for why we wanted to pursue this book. and last but not least, i felt that the discourse about aid is

typically disconnected from the broader context of ideas, norms and power relations. you see, aid given does not take place in vacuum. aid given decisions about aid, they are part of a broader humanitarian regime. humanitarian regime has some written, some unwritten rules regulations, agencies, international institutions as well, as well as ethics and humanitarian regime itself. with its premise of recognizing in common shared humanity, bestowing equal dignity in all individuals. it's part of a broader global order that used to be known as know, liberal, international order or under it, you know, came across in other other names and until recently, the united states was an architect, a benefactor and a contributor, a

backer of this global order. so the spread and tenacity of those neo liberal norms that also buttress the current humanitarian regime. so they've survived because of the material of power of the united states as well as other traditional donors, particularly u.s. allies and partners in europe. and the argument that we make in the book is that if we want if we want to understand how and why states decide where to send their scarce resources, we cannot overlook that broad, broader context of what people in washington call the geopolitical or geostrategic competition. and that aid cannot be understood outside of the relations of the united states and china. and to a lesser extent, russia. so bluffed i bottom line upfront. so the argument on the surface is very simple. so what we say is that these

motives for humanitarian aid are informed by their geopolitical logic. the geopolitical logic, it's simply a sexy word. it's it's a construct. it's a shortcut to explain something that is very, very complex, namely that every state has this set of foundational beliefs about themselves, about their place in the world, about the world world writ large, about the relations with others. and these foundational believes emerge in a particular historical context, but they evolve, evolve under the influence of that same states, relations with other countries, and their experiences with humanitarian disasters and so on and so forth. but once those beliefs are integrated into the institutional makeup of the countries, into their laws, they start setting the parameters for those countries policies in the field of humanitarian action. and so in the remainder of my talk, i'm going to present geopolitical logics of china,

russia and the united states. but in a very, very simplified way is just kind of to give you the feel for what's how this argument looks in practice. so let me begin with china. okay. we're going to run direction now. china. so china is known as a an emerging donor. why? because it was only in 2005, five that china transformed itself from being a recipient of aid to being a an international donor. but, of course, china's geopolitical rise arising terms of kind of shift in the distribution of power at the global level embolden beijing to sort of offer for a new set of ideas about different things, including international humanitarian assistance. in fact, china does not use the language of aid. it used its own terminology to

refer to those, you know, win win collaborations. it doesn't refer to the recipients of aid as recipients and itself as a donor. so you cannot find donor and recipient terms in chinese vocabulary because for china, it harkens back to the colonial era and so it really wants to portray itself as someone who is uneven terms, equal terms with the recipients of assistance. so this is i'll just say that, you know, china clearly came up with kind of its own vocabulary, its own way of registering. it's not part of any of the global mechanisms to track where the aid is being sent. okay. so so what are those key principles of of china's assistance? on the left hand side, you see a picture that illustrates. one of the foundational myth are portraying a great flood that took place in the third

millennium. and that great flood was so great that no ruler was able to manage it successfully until a key persona, key actor of of this myth by name. you emerged and succeeded in managing the consequences of the flood that in turn passed the way for establishing the emperor ship in china and that was the opening of the dynasty in china as well. so i wanted to begin with this myth because the legacy of you and the legacy of state in disaster management, disaster management has endured for for four centuries. to this day. to this day state is the key actor in humanitarian assistance at home and abroad. okay. and because state is considered to be as a main actor in

humanitarian assistance and state is a political actor, right. so politics is integral to humanitarian projects or humanitarian assistance. being political is not an aberration in china's cosmology. and i don't want to go into a lot of detail. but steve is not just the material entity in china's thinking. it has virtue, it has kind of ethical connotations. so there is nothing wrong with politics informing some of those humanity in decisions. so again, state has is and will probably continue to play a key role in making decision and administering humanitarian assistance, which is quite different from how aid is administered in, you know, for example, the united states humanitarian assistance framework. i want to tell a couple of other foundational believes that informed geopolitical logic of china. one is the unity of thinking, which is in simple terms, what is good domestically, what works

domestically. we can extrapolate it, we can use it as a role model for our foreign policy action. so if domestically we use humanitarian assistance to help local communities to develop so humanitarian assistance is a tool to facilitate local development and we need local. communities to develop because development is the key to internal harmony and peace. we can use the same logic internally. so internationally, i'm sorry. so internationally then humanitarian aid becomes part of the developmental projects. so all of the aid packages, they come, aid trade investment packages, so aid is indistinguishable from all other. it's very hard to separate what is aid, what is trade, what is investment, what is not. but it is consistent with china's logic because just like domestically, internationally, we're going to send aid. there's this health route that is part of the belt and road initiative. you know, network of projects, because this is consistent with how we do that domestically.

not only that, whatever is good domestically is going to be good. international, but international development and peace is also benefit to china because it's going to facilitate in turn, development in peace at home. so in china's development and foreign aid thinking, there is this belief that china can create a win win situation of prosperity and peace that is beneficial to china. so humanitarian aid is inextricably linked to beijing's development aid. when it comes to, you know, this, how it played out during the covid era. right. so a, we do we did see that beijing, the government and the government agencies were the main actors overseeing in both decisions and implementation of covid 19 assistance and later

the distributions of vaccine. again, very, very different from how aid was distributed in the context of united states humanitarian infrastructure. so a lot of those aid packages were state to state in bilateral fashion on the as a side note. so we did a lot of novel data gathering. we systematically collected information on humanitarian aid transfers from china, from the united states, from russia. we did both qualitative and quantitative analysis. and one of the strongest findings that emerged out of all of this analysis is that covid 19 aid went to the countries that had very projects with china. so again, it's kind of it's consistent that in china's thinking humanity oriented assistance is an important piece and parcel of its thinking about development. development is linked to peace and security and how it's beneficial. back to china. it was when the relationship was

even stronger then. when it comes to, you know, those countries who recognized or does not recognize taiwan versus china, it was kind of overriding some of what we, you know, expects you to find with regard to china's humanitarian assistance and remember, i begin by saying that we cannot think about aid outside of the context of broader u.s. us-china relations. so china's approach to aid is. in contrast to and even contrary to that kind of neo liberal logic of the traditional humanitarian assistance that places high premium and individual and in the individual and and so the united states, you know, obviously perceived china's action as kind of rogue state action that is undermining that traditional humanitarian regime. china perceived us resistance to its assistance as a deliberate effort to hamper or impede

china's rise. so we also find that some of the covid 19 aid distributed by china in vaccine distributions as well, was to counter assistance sent by the united states. so there was this element of geopolitics in the aid distribution as well. let me say a few words about russia, because russia's logic is also very much state centric. and you probably heard the famous saying from vladimir putin, who was quoted. so the state and its institute, tions and structures have always played an exceptionally important role in the life of the country and its people. so for russians, a strong state is not an anomaly to fight against. quite the contrary, it is the source and guarantor of order. the initiator and the main driving force of any change. and of course. but if china's aid policy is has been linked to the goal of global leadership, russia hasn't really proposed anything that can be emulated on the global

scale. instead, russia's humanitarian action has been driven by concern with projecting and defending its great power identity, great power status. but for russia, great power identity comes with both rights and responsibility ideas. and among those responsibilities are to play a bigger, constructive role in global and regional affairs. but also help to alleviate poverty. also help to alleviate consequences of natural disasters. so in russia's context, there have been this curious mix of aspirations, claims and entitlements. and there has always been this tension between like sort of trying to do good and being recognized as a member of this exceptional or exclusive club of western donors and, you know, also this penchant for acting in self-interest. interestingly, so.

until 2014, we're actually legally in annexed crimea. there was, i would say, even a genuine effort to sort of integrate into the western humanitarian regime, russia and a number of workshop is funded by the department of state. it really tried to share data on, you know, the levels and, you know, where it sent its humanitarian assistance with the international agencies. it did work through international agencies much more than it does today, in large part because it didn't have its own infrastructure to channel aid. things change, obviously, in 2014. and right now, russia's official documents and doctrine explicitly name assistance as a tool of foreign policy. that russia can use for a range of objectives, including for, you know, projecting and defending its great power status. and what we did find that when it came to covid 19 assistance, some assistance assistance was

sent to sort of inconsistent with the principle of the need to to the countries, especially in on the african continent, who needed that assistance the most. but of course, we also find a very, very strong relationship between, you know, aid for both in the united nations or russia, sort of rewarded countries that either abstained or voted against united nations general assembly resolutions condemning russia's aggressive foreign policy. so there was that kind of relationship. of course, supported the that the like minded neighboring countries, members of the collective security organization or the eurasian economic union. so, yeah, so we do find that when it comes to covid 19 assistance, many of the elements of that geopolitical logic played out as well. and if your words about the united states so the united states, i will use it in past term, had been the top

humanitarian dollar in terms of just the dollar value of of of assistance. and it had also been the major contributor to covid 19. assistance and vaccines. this assistance, again, in terms of just dollar amount. this is not to say that the united states have traditionally li been driven by humanitarian concerns alone, not necessarily during the cold war era, for example, but the soviet union and the united states. they used humanitarian and development assistance as a way of countering either, you know, communist ideology or capitalist ideology. we talk about the the soviet union in the post-cold war era when you know, when various administrations would find a connection between, for example, development or underdevelopment and authoritarianism as sources

of terrorism, much more aid would be channeled towards goals that were unrelated to solving humanitarian disasters, but rather standing up democratic regimes, helping development. so all i'm trying to say is that, you know, you wait united states aid distribute nation has always been colored by modern humanitarian motivations. geopolitics geoeconomic intervene. but i do want to acknowledge that the institutional infrastructure that was established in the 1960s, 1970 is either by a fluke or by design. this office for humanitarian assistance that was functioning within the united states aid. it was able to maintain a considerable level of independence from partizan, politics, from all of those

geopolitical geo economic concerns. it had significant. i significant financial independence. it had the authority to quickly administer the funds to countries and territories in need of those in the aftermath of various disasters. and it could do so independently of the bureaucratic bureaucracies of the state department. or, you know, how long it takes to approve any kind of allocations by the congress. so. and it had a small but very, very dedicated personnel. so, again, the history has has shown that that office in particular did stay committed to those humanitarian principles of of of of impartiality, of neutrality and universality of humanitarian assistance. but as the united states became more and more involved militarily in various parts of the world, there was kind of a tactical necessity. so you say to have a staff of usaid and staff of the office

for humanitarian assistance to work in close proximity to the geographic combatant commands in made a lot of a lot of sense because some of those situations where humanitarian disasters unfolded were complex emergencies, kind of a confluence of conflict, disasters, environmental disasters. so it made tactical sense to have that interagency staff working together. but it did not. you did not stay at the tactical level. it kind of got elevated. and over time, many of these kind of decision making autonomy and autonomy and making financial decisions were taken away from, you know, the office of the bureau of humanitarian assistance. so that authority got dispersed to either usaid, the state department, president bush created the millennium challenge corporation and president trump during the first term created the. another financial corporation.

so other agencies acquired authorities for making decisions about the administration. so so with the loss of this independence and the emergence and the emergence of close linkages between humanitarian aid and development assistance, even humanitarian aid became much more aid like. so let me give you a specific example of how it played out during the covid era. so during so united states, covid 19 assistance was also transmitted through the established development assistance channels, and it relied on the metrics for determining recipients of development aid, not humanitarian aid. remember the development aid is always a somewhat political, you know, development aid in the context of the united states was distributed on the basis of placing faith in democracy, placing faith in the market economy. so it was linked to those kinds of metrics. and because humanitarian

assistance architect begin resembling or was folded under the development assistance assistance, architecture, humanitarian aid during the covid era was also administered through those development channels. so we find a very, very strong relationship between where development assistance went in the 19 assistance followed. and i think the united states freezing its membership in the world health administration also had a lot to do with that. and again, unfortunately, as a result, you know, some of the aid did not reach the areas that world health organization offices could reach again. so it followed the development channel. okay. so u.s. humanitarian aid has become tethered to those same considerations, that developmental aid was connected to. so u.s. government ended up providing higher level of assistance and vaccine assistance to democratic allies,

as well as those countries that supported u.s. foreign policy in the united nations. again, so there was kind of with with all credit to, again, just the sheer magnitude of resources that the united states shared with the rest of the world. but nevertheless, there was this, again, departure from kind of original humanitarian principles and much more consistency with kind of a geoeconomic developmental logic. all right. so let me just kind of tied altogether and then we can also discuss some of the other bigger themes in the q&a. so on the surface, the humanitarian assistance, particularly covid 19 assistance by china, russia and the united states followed both humanitarian principles, but also kind of the logic of their national interest. but the reasoning that went into the definition of national

interest that reason the underlying logic that the book is about differed and this is what we try to sort of on an earth with with our exploration that, you know, the united states, as i said, always placed much more faith in democratic governance and market economy. and it has traditionally channeled more humanitarian aid to states with pardon that type of there was good economic policies, potential for growth and promise of political reform. china always packaged its aid in the aid trade investment packages. it always emphasized political neutrality. and it emphasized when we incorporate asian with recipient countries, we've seen that much more humanitarian aid goes towards countries where china has various economic development projects and investments and russia, of course, used to both project defend and sort of kind

of shape its image as a responsible, great power and because russia's than china's approach to aid depart from kind of those traditional humanitarian vision principles and the principles of broader global liberal or neoliberal international order, there have been this competing vision and excited by all of these countries for the united states. you know, china's desire to promote an alternative model of development and alternative model of humanitarian assistance is threatening again. the united states has benefited strongly from a set of institutions that were established in the aftermath of the second world war and all of those normative frameworks. so anything new? it's just a material challenge in terms of, you know, greater military or whatnot. but it is an ideational challenge. so the united states tried to

counter china. china and russia would perceive the united states as sort of, you know, impeding their desire to also play an equal great power all in regional and global affairs. and so that thinking also influenced all of the three governments decision about humanitarian aid. and so they tried to use humanitarian aid to come rich with each other. and so this contest over ideas and approaches to humanitarian aid has also diluted humanitarian imperatives. and so when geopolitics are infused into decisions about humanitarian aid, the outcome that the time honored norm of alleviating human suffering loses its legitimacy and the regional purpose. so we kind of found that, again, that context became counter productive, you know, to the kind of original intent of helping people in need. so i'll stop here. i think i. have 30 minutes. thank you so much, maria.

i think it was really super highlighting, especially the way you were showing the this kind of broader ideological thinking context in a way of kind of beyond the covid case to understand this interconnected ness between perception of foreign policy and global order and the concrete example of of a of and i think it's really highlighting a lot what is happening now. i think that when you have a new administration that with the normal way of understanding foreign policy and you know, their vision of what should be both the domestic and the global order, you almost automatically have a rethinking of what should be the assistance. right. and then i think you showing very well the three cases. so you mentioned at the end the kind of competing asian aspect that the three great powers may have in the way they are displaying their assistance. and i think we saw that in the covid case very much with all these vaccine diplomacy kind of competition. but i was wondering and i will

open the floor for q&a, but i wanted to to take the advantage of the first question. do we also have we also seen cases of cooperation on concrete case? and i'm thinking maybe covid, but maybe also in afghanistan, where there was a time where the three great power where in a much more kind of claw interaction, for example, the on some specific. so i wanted to launch that as a kind of which if we move beyond the kind of competition narrative of are there cases of possible cooperation or are they functioning at best in parallel? yeah, absolutely. great, great question. yes. so as an international relations scholar, i don't see competition and cooperation as the opposite ends. in fact, cooperation sometimes happens through competition. so cooperation at simply coordinating policies in an effort to achieve kind of a removed shared goal.

and so in the book, we do talk about how cooperation possible, even at the height of the competition. so just to remind you, during the cold war era, the united states and soviet scientists ended up cooperating over the polio vaccine into this day, the polio vaccination campaign around the world, in africa, in asia, and in many, many other countries that were the places where the proxy proxy wars were fought. so that example of cooperation between the two rivals is still listed as kind of that, you know, something something something to look forward to that it's possible to cooperate even between the rivals. and due to that, the united states and china has had have

had their moments of cooperation, even in the field of developing vaccine or starting those possible zoonotic diseases or whatnot. and many, many scholars of of of health diplomacy, they point out to various areas where china and the united states can continue cooperating and, you know, you know, if it's a vaccine production, you know, china has a lot of productive capacity with sharing some of the information on, you know, vaccine production in china can scale up the production of vaccines for distribution through covax or other international forums as one example. so, yes, there are opportunities and those are pointed out china has. one thing that i didn't point out is that china has had tremendous experience of dealing with environmental disasters because due to its geographical location, it has been plagued with droughts, floods, etc.,

etc., etc. it has a top notch search and rescue, urban search and rescue team that has been assisting in various international settings, something that can be brought to bear in terms of experience sharing or informing international or regional response. so there are areas where the united states and china can cooperate. i think in the end it's just the political will. and again, not being boxed into seeing geopolitics or geostrategic competition kind of in the very, very narrow sense that excludes any opportunities for cooperation, which is more and more difficult to do because i think both the ministrations now see the bilateral relations in terms of the zero sum. so once countries win is another country's loss and i think again it is all in the minds and it's very important you change to shift that discourse and and i think with the shift in discourse about what competition

and cooperation is all about, then you know, there will be this window of opportunity for actually engaging in practical forms of cooperation. and again, this is kind of goes back to the importance of understanding that lots things that we take for granted, they are not natural or all. they are just like in our minds, these are the ideas and kind of shifting the discourse then will open the space for even limited cooperation that may be maybe very beneficial to humanity writ large. thank you. let's open the floor for question. we have a mic here in the room. come here. henry hill. yeah. thank you. henry hill. george washington university. thank you. really interesting talk and congratulations on the book and the research. thank you. i guess my question is just looking at what we're experiencing today in the united states right. there's something of a backlash against aid. and i thought it was very interesting to think about that in the context of the chinese approach that you said. right. so like kind of in our language,

language of aid, it's a language u.s. leadership. whereas for china, you're describing it, they're describing as all integrated, right. that that aid you can't they don't even use the word aid. and it's kind of all bundled up very tightly with the idea of like development, trade. so things that benefit chinese people and china directly. so i guess i'm wondering, you know, based on your research, do you find evidence, have they managed to have has that helped them to avoid kind of a backlash in their own country? i mean, do they do they do you see critics that they're that are saying in the same way that critics have long talked about here, about how well, you know, money spent abroad is is money not spent at home where it's vitally needed. i just wonder how much this language and approach to characterizing and conceptualizing these aid policies, you know, might might also affect kind of their domestic levels of support for them.

sure. great question. if i were to offer like a mile critique of u.s. street, i mean, administration that will concern kind of the paucity or deficiency is of strategic communications. the united states, the department, usaid and the office for humanitarian assistance, they've been able to achieve a lot. i mean, we can criticize them for some things, but they've. they've really achieved a, you know, lots of accomplishments. but american people don't know what those accomplishments are and how those accomplishments are beneficial to them. so there's always there's always been this disconnect between what we do in terms of investments, development assistance and humanitarian aid overseas and how it benefits americans at home. there have always been this disconnect, and it's not just about aid. i mean, it's also about security

assistance. like i travel overseas or i travel domestically. it's like, you know, what does it do to us that we spend billions of dollars, you know, in georgia, ukraine, you name the country, right. so i think what china has done better is i a really putting on display all this effort, even though in terms of monetary value, china administered considerably less aid than the united states like china's aid is a small percentage of what the united states contributed. but it has always been like with this huge pomp, like, you know, everything is like, oh, it's china made, you know, all those photo ops, you know, hands shaking. thank you. thank you so much. and it all gets reflected. so i think it gives the chinese citizens so much more pride, appreciation and sort of it's much more tangible for them and it's more tangible in terms of

how they talk about what the benefits are. because, again, it goes back to that unity of thinking. the unity of thinking means that what we do internationally has the direct benefit to our development at home. so this narrative, like all their doctrines, all of the documents, they kind of they repeat this narrative. so i think there's strategic communications campaign has done it much better that the chinese people, you know, take pride in china's leadership role. they also believe that it's beneficial to them domestically. i don't that the united states, in a administrator has done the same kind of explanatory play, the same kind of explanatory role or even overseas. there have been a lot of limitations on where the united can place, you know, the stamp like, oh, is usa sometimes where the aid comes from is conceal that for the reasons of safety, security and there are some other limitations on where aid can go, like china can sponsor

stadiums and hospitals and this and that. and that's something that is very visible and it can be advertised and publicize in the united states. you know, there are limitations. and so a aid, even though it is in large numbers, then it can have very, very important and positive effects internationally. it may not be as visible as china is and it is not well understood. i mean the public opinion research in the united states has consistently shown that americans exaggerate what they think the united states and you know, how much aid it sends like 2% of the gdp. crazy assessment. no, it's a teeny tiny i mean, the united states, in terms of the percentage of gdp, is at the bottom of the list of the organization of, you know, advanced developed economies. so it doesn't really meet that, you know, unofficial standard of aid given in dollars. yes. but i think domestically, we also don't understand how that

aid benefits american citizens either in terms of, you know, preventing the outbreak of of of another zoonotic or another infectious disease or whatnot so i do think it's a lot about strategic communications. and, you know, i spoke to quite a few state department folks and they kind of acknowledge that this digital communications campaign has not been their strength. q do we have other questions? yes. one here. thank so much for yeah, thank you so much for your presentation. this was very interesting and very timely. i was to what? i have two questions, a bit separate from each other, but connected to what extent? like the research accounts for all the aid that states in the united states are constantly see these numbers online that for example, for the development assistance, $0.77 to a dollar stays actually in the united states and doesn't leave the country. and it benefits the american

industry, vaccine production or american military production. to what extent the numbers and the u.s. position dollar dollar amount accounts for the money that states in the united states. and the second part of my question would be, do you think with the united pulling away from aid and possibly shutting down usaid, can china and russia, do they have the capacity to fill in the gap that the united states might leave behind in the developing world? yeah, great question. i think the second one is a little bit is easier to address. so the not so much, you know, aid domestically, but when it comes to world health organization example among many approaches to helping it be perceived as a global leader, china used kind of make an

institution along roads, meaning that china has tried to place its officials in the key leadership positions in various international agencies, either china and russia will be able to fill in the gap of funding. it will be a significant gap. but i think when it comes to playing a role in decision making fashion in leadership fashion, i think china in particular will benefit tremendously from united states departure from those agencies. one thing that i do want to say here regarding the volume of assistance. so yes, china and russia cannot fill in that gap gap. but what i find in my research is that sometimes the volume is less significant in terms of getting at the desired outcomes than just being there.

i will use an example of russia that i looked very, very closely. russia, as aid is like a drop in the ocean of assistance, but russia has done it so strategic clearly, placing it in the areas where either the united states will be like scaling back its assistance or like really strategically to counter something the united states has done. and again, it's just a perception of russia and china being somewhere back in the countries in need at the time of the united states departure has of very, very significant impact in terms of a this country's support in china's and russia's foreign policy. be this countries allowing china to have access or place investments into the strategic areas that wouldn't have otherwise allowed them to place their investments into. so again, it is the time being

it's when the countries find themselves in a dire situation and when this vacuum is filled, even if the resources that are in come in considerably less than what they would have got from the united states. again, it is how it is perceived and how it's framed, you know, by china, by russia is what it's going to have an impact on the recipient countries foreign policies. so that's first. and again, i do think that china will benefit from the united states in some of these international agencies because then it will be able to shape their agendas in ways that are consistent with its approach to development. and with regard to your first question, your right, you are correct like that. you know, even the the amount of money that the united states puts into humanitarian and development assistance and especially security assistance, oftentimes benefits the united states when it came to covid 19 assistance, some of that aid that was sent through usaid

offices of the department offices, it was used to ensure the safety of the united states diplomatic personnel, even though it is reflected in the total amount as eight sent to those countries. so this definitely some benefit. it goes back to the united states with all that aid that it sends overseas. when it comes to like the specific dollar amounts, i don't have it at at the tips of my fingers, but definitely the united states. and it's great example of how the us can benefit domestically from the aid it sends internationally. yes, the question there in the back. is a hello, i'm smithsonian, one of patrick fellows, the george washington university. and so my question is about the competition between the countries and aids. you mentioned this as a sort of international factor. and my question would be, how

does it work out domestically within countries that benefit from a international aid? so you would have probably countries where ngos receive, aid from different sources. so do they how do they compete? do they compete? do they then reflect different values? russia, defense, traditional values. u.s. had some other kinds of agendas. does it lead to sort of firm and culture wars within countries? how does that play out? that's great. thank you so much for your question, because one of the main differences between china, russia, aid and ministry action and that of the united states is that the united states has traditionally administered aid through non-governmental organizations and rather than other non-state agencies that partner up with the field offices of the usaid state

department, whatnot, which again, by extension, if the united states freezes, pulls out, reduces that level of assistance, the if those organizations used some of the resources that operational costs for them to administer through the those those aid packages on the ground, i don't know where they will come up with alternative resources because neither russia, neither china nor russia, they work through ngos the ground both russia and china, they work through state to state channels. if ngos are involved, they are geos in the name only. they are. the good news. they are the government organized, non-governmental organizations. there are fewer of those that russia works with mostly in serbia and a handful of other locations. but still all of that funding is strictly controlled by the state and china also works through the

government channels. yes so it is going to affect now that you brought it up, i think it's going to have a trickle down effect on civil societies in those countries. so there will not be really competition, but definitely an effect will be felt on that duration of the civil society and non-governmental organizations that traditionally received funding from u.s. embassies or field offices have shifted about, yes. yes. yeah, didn't even think about it, but i think that is one of the trickle down effects that may potentially, um, that we may potentially observe. and if i can follow up on that question and in a sense ask a question, which is the the other side of the coin of henry's question about local public opinion in countries which have been receiving covid 19 assistance. so what do we know how a local public opinion have been

perceiving the the the kind of vaccine diplomacy competition? an arriving? my impression from what i saw that the u.s. and europe have been very alone in their bubble to be very critical of u.s., of russian and chinese vaccine diplomacy. but local now, sebastian has been much more positive, whatever the limitation of the chinese and russian assistance, that's something that you are looking at at the in the book. and do we have any way of kind of looking at in terms of data and how public opinion interprets this kind of great power competition assistance? sure. great question. so not necessarily in this book, but in a in a different project of mine where i look at like smaller and middle powers. how do they deal with the great power competition? but but i think this conclusion will probably apply to your question as well, namely that the small other countries of the world, they have agency and their governments are savvy

enough to understand what is going on. there is a reluctance to side with if the united states or china or russia, but there is also in the simon is the simon is also plays out in a way where these countries can actually leverage and manipulate their competition. so one of the other negative byproducts of geopolitical competition is that the united states, china and russia themselves can be played by the actors on the ground. and we don't want to recognize that. but i think this is what's happening. again, the governments are savvy. they have their own political agendas. they have own, you know, the mystique agendas. and they do what's in the interest of the government in power. and they can leverage this competition in the interest of those in power. and you're right that when it comes to russia, sputnik or some of the china funded vaccines, they were received much better. emmanuel local context than how it's been presented in the west.

a but it was actually russia who promised more than it was able to deliver a lot of the contracts that were signed on significant volumes of sputnik vaccine were not or fulfilled only partly, partially, partly. and so that kind of undermined russia's credibility because of russia's own inability to fulfill the commitments. but overall, from the standpoint of those countries, i mean, i looked at central asia, for example. you know, they were just willing to accept whatever vaccines, either a discounted price or if it's through covax, it's you know, free of charge that became available at the time. we have we have time for one more question. if not, then i would be happy to ask one more that follow what you were just saying in mentioning central asia. so you presented the the the where each of the three great power was, of course, organizing

assistance towards countries with whom they have some links. they built a road of kind of political connection. i was wondering how much we see a kind of regional identity in the three cases like russia giving mostly to persuade space. china giving mostly in southeast asia and maybe pakistan, u.s. giving mostly, i don't know, in in central america. so do we see this kind of, you know, sphere of influence in a very kind of old fashioned a way being visible in the distribution of aid or what that? much more largely kind of despite around the few other partners of the moment. definitely in the case of in the case of russia, for sure. and i think, again, russia of the three actors is probably the most limited lots of limitations. a this humanitarianism is by far less developed as an idea in russia's context than in the context of the united states and china.

there are lots of limitations in terms of, you know, how those development and humanitarian assistance doctrines are written. there are there were some debates about how you structure institutions inside russia to administer aid. again, there are lots of lots of deficiencies and limitations on how what and i think this has something to do with the fact that it was much easier for putin to pick up a phone call. a phone and, you know, phone the counterpart easier in kyrgyzstan or in another format in a post-soviet republic. so a lot of those things were done at the level of the leader, you know, whoever he was connected to through the mechanisms, csto or eurasian economic union. so oftentimes, you know, the phone call will take place. do we need aid? yes. okay. and then they will sort of take advantage of the planes available, you know, to the military or the minister of the emergency situations. and then from there on, it would be delivered there.

but definitely those kind of political ties, the proximity and the limitations of the infrastructure did play a role. and let me give you one more example, particularly since central asia, i think in central asia, interestingly, the older generation, the generation that grew up and maybe had formative years in the soviet union, there was also much more receptiveness to sputnik vaccines and overall vaccination campaign. not sure if it had anything to do with the bilateral bilateral aid relations, but yes, so there was much more receptiveness and i think it due to that historical legacy of the soviet vaccination campaign. and so there was more of a support for sputnik or more trust in sputnik as a more traditional type of vaccine among that older generation that could have affected the government decision making if those individuals were part of their health agencies. wonderful. well, with that, time for us to conclude soumya i wanted to

thank you for coming here today and presenting the book. thank you for everybody for joining us. i really invite you to look at that book. it's giving you a great kind of a background on this. the current transformation and of our foreign assistance, the ideology and strategy we are following here in the us. and we hope to see you soon for another event that george washington university. thank you so much. and maya, thank you. thank you. thank you. so much. you know, gracious, gracious. yeah, y