1. Introduction 

In recent years, the notion of a “post-aid world” has gained increasing attention in both academic and policy debates, as dissatisfaction with traditional Western models of development assistance has grown alongside a marked decline in aid flows from major donors. Official development assistance (ODA) from OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries fell to USD 174.3 billion in 2025—a 23.1% decrease from the previous year—marking the largest annual contraction on record (OECD, 2025). Against this backdrop, traditional aid models, often associated with conditionality, governance reform, and liberal norms, have been widely criticised for their limited effectiveness and political implications. Despite this, aid relations continue to reflect a structure shaped by a limited number of major donors and a large number of mostly poor recipients (Oishi et al., 2022: 7–8). 

At the same time, global development cooperation is undergoing significant transformation, reshaping patterns of influence. Among these actors, China has become a central player, with expanding engagement across Africa, Asia, and other regions. The establishment of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) in 2018 reflects a more institutionalised and coordinated approach to development cooperation (OECD, 2025). More importantly, the significance of China’s engagement lies less in its financial scale, with its aid reducing the power of traditional donors to shape development trajectories and breaking the monopoly of Western aid over how countries in the Global South develop (Gilpin, 2021: 277). 

However, much of this research focuses on material outcomes—such as debt and infrastructure in the context of geopolitical competition—while paying less attention to how development itself is defined and understood. This paper shifts the focus from material practices to discursive constructions. It argues that China’s development engagement constitutes not merely an alternative source of aid, but a discursive project that redefines development as infrastructure, stability, and sovereignty. Through this reframing, the relationship between development and security is transformed, challenging neoliberal economic development fundamentals and opening possibilities for developing states to pursue more autonomous and self-directed development, less constrained by external actors (Gilpin, 2021: 277–278). 

2. Rethinking Aid 

From the bilateral and multilateral institutions that make up the “aid industry,” foreign aid is often presented as a neutral instrument aimed at alleviating poverty and promoting development. However, such representations obscure the extent to which aid is embedded in political, ideological, and normative frameworks. Western aid, in particular, has historically been shaped by a dominant neoliberal development model that prioritises market-oriented reforms and de-emphasises the role of the state (Rafferty, 2011: 32). These principles are frequently operationalised through conditionality, defined as the practice of giving financial assistance contingent on the implementation of specific policies (Dreher, 2009: 233).  As a result, this paper shows that aid is not merely an economic transfer, but a mechanism through which models of political and economic order are promoted and normalised. 

Constructivism emphasises that how the material world shapes and is shaped by human action and interaction depends on dynamic normative interpretations of that world (Adler, 1997: 322). Applied to aid, this perspective highlights that key concepts such as development and security are not fixed or objective but socially constructed through shared ideas and norms. Actors produce and stabilise meanings through language and practice, shaping how problems are understood and how responses are formulated. 

Building on this perspective, this study draws on insights from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which treats language as a form of social practice and emphasises how power relations are produced and reproduced through discourse (van Dijk, 2001; Wodak and Meyer, 2001). Rather than conducting detailed textual analysis, CDA is used here as an analytical lens to examine how development is framed and legitimised across different political contexts. This approach shifts attention away from material practices alone towards the meanings through which aid is understood and justified. 

3. China’s Development Discourse 

This discourse is prominently expressed through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which function not only as mechanisms of investment but also as platforms for articulating a particular vision of development and regional order (Rolland, 2017). Rather than merely financing infrastructure, these initiatives extend beyond the economic realm into the geopolitical domain, embedding regional integration and China’s own worldview. In doing so, they frame development around principles of sovereignty, non-intrusion, and mutual respect, while offering alternatives to established Western aid practices (Woods, 2008: 1220–1221). This framing embeds specific assumptions about political authority, economic progress, and international order, while contributing to a shift in influence away from traditional Western donors. 

Central to this discourse are recurring concepts such as “connectivity,” “win-win cooperation,” “mutual benefit,” and “non-interference,” which frame development as a cooperative process centred on infrastructure, economic integration, and shared growth (Callahan, 2016: 226–227). “Connectivity” emphasises the physical linking of regions through transport, energy, and digital networks, presenting development as a matter of capacity-building rather than institutional reform. Similarly, “win-win cooperation” and “mutual benefit” construct development as reciprocal, downplay​ asymmetries of power​,​ and refram​​e​​ international engagement as mutually advantageous. The principle of “non-interference” further reinforces this approach by rejecting external involvement in domestic political arrangements, thereby contrasting with the conditionality practices commonly associated with DAC donors, where aid is often used to impose economic and political conditions and to guide recipient states within a broader framework of incentives and discipline (Brautigam, 2011: 761). 

Taken together, these concepts construct development as a largely pragmatic and depoliticised endeavour, yet this apparent neutrality is itself political, as discourse can obscure underlying power relations and limit space for contestation. By framing development as cooperative, this discourse marginalises questions of inequality, labour conditions, and local governance. Importantly, by emphasising stability, economic growth, and state capacity, it frames development as a pathway to order, rearticulating development not simply as an end, but as a mechanism through which stability is produced. It can thus be understood as a reconfiguration of power, as emerging donors introduce competitive pressures into the existing system and weaken the bargaining position of Western donors by offering alternative forms of development cooperation (Woods, 2008: 1220–1221).

4. Case Studies: Contesting Meanings of Development and Security 

1. Infrastructure Projects: Development vs Risk 

China’s infrastructure projects across the Global South have become a central site in which competing interpretations of development and security are not only expressed but actively produced. While such projects are often analysed in terms of their economic impact, their political significance lies equally in how they are framed and understood by different actors. 

Within Chinese policy discourse, the BRI is framed around the development of infrastructure and socioeconomic connectivity, with particular emphasis on enhancing flows of capital, goods, and people across the Eurasian landmass. This is reflected in the focus on policy coordination, transport linkages, trade flows, financial connectivity, and people-to-people bonds, which together aim to reduce barriers to circulation and deepen regional integration (Summers, 2016: 1630–1636). This approach reflects a broader understanding of development as the creation of networks linking major urban nodes, rather than as a territorially bounded process. Infrastructure investment is thus positioned as a means of facilitating integration into these wider networks of the global political economy, accelerating circulation and reducing spatial barriers to economic activity. 

However, representations of infrastructure-led development as a largely depoliticised process are not uncontested. Western political and policy narratives increasingly frame these projects through a language of risk, particularly through the widely circulated notion of “debt-trap diplomacy,” which has rapidly spread across media, policy, and intelligence communities and come to be treated as established “truth” (Brautigam, 2020: 2–5). In this framing, infrastructure is not merely economic but strategic, raising concerns about sovereignty, influence, and long-term dependency. What is notable is not only the existence of competing interpretations, but also how these narratives are amplified and stabilised—while Chinese discourse seeks to depoliticise development, Western discourse re-politicises it through security-oriented interpretations. 

Divergent interpretations of the same infrastructure projects cannot be fully explained by material outcomes alone, but reflect competing discursive frameworks through which development is made meaningful. Drawing on securitisation theory, security is understood not as an objective condition but as a speech act, through which issues are constituted as threats (Wæver, 1995: 46–50). From this perspective, Chinese infrastructure projects are not inherently security threats but are rendered as such through processes of interpretation. This shifts them from the domain of economic cooperation into that of security concern, thereby legitimising heightened scrutiny and political responses. Invoking “security” thus claims a special right to use whatever means are deemed necessary (Wæver, 1995: 51–52). 

2. Conflict Contexts: Development as Security 

The relationship between development and security is particularly significant in conflict-affected contexts. Rather than treating development and security as separate domains, Chinese discourse collapses the distinction between them, presenting development as a direct response to insecurity.  

Official Chinese policy documents and joint statements consistently link infrastructure development to economic growth, poverty reduction, and long-term stability. This logic is reflected in initiatives such as the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), where infrastructure investment is framed as improving livelihoods while contributing to broader security objectives (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, 2017), as well as in policy frameworks such as the Vision and Actions on Jointly Building the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, which emphasises economic cooperation, the strengthening of exchanges and mutual learning among different societies, and the promotion of peace and development  (NDRC, MFA and MOFCOM, 2015). Within this framing, underdevelopment is positioned as a key source of instability, and infrastructure investment is presented as a means of addressing these structural constraints by promoting economic growth and strengthening state capacity. 

This logic is also evident in China’s engagement across Africa, where aid is directed towards sectors such as infrastructure, energy, and public facilities to support economic growth and development capabilities. For instance, Chinese-supported industrial development in Ethiopia, such as the establishment of manufacturing facilities, has been associated with job creation and the expansion of export-oriented production, thereby contributing to domestic industrial capacity and long-term economic development (Gilpin, 2021: 286–288). Similarly, in Zambia, hydropower projects financed by China are framed as increasing electricity supply and reducing persistent power shortages, thereby alleviating key constraints on economic activity and development (Gilpin, 2021: 285–286). These cases illustrate how development discourse is operationalised in practice. 

Beyond infrastructure, this approach is also reflected in frameworks such as the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which emphasises industrialisation and capacity-building by supporting manufacturing, skills development, and the strengthening of domestic productive capabilities. Rather than focusing on short-term assistance, this approach emphasises capacity-building and skills transfer to support self-reliant development. 

However, these examples also demonstrate that development is not a purely technical solution to insecurity. While Chinese engagement emphasises a “development-first” approach focused on improving economic conditions, it remains embedded within broader political and structural contexts. As the case of Mali illustrates, infrastructure investment is framed as addressing underdevelopment, yet it is simultaneously shaped by external financing, domestic capacity, and existing economic conditions (Gilpin, 2021: 285–286). More broadly, such projects may contribute to economic growth while also reconfiguring patterns of dependency, resource allocation, and state authority. 

From a constructivist perspective, what is significant is not whether development objectively produces security, but how this relationship is constructed and legitimised. The integration of development and security within Chinese discourse represents a reconfiguration of both concepts, in which economic intervention becomes a form of security practice. Security is thus redefined not as a separate domain requiring distinct policy tools, but as an outcome embedded within development itself. 

5. Conclusion 

Rather than asking whether China’s rise constitutes an objective threat, this paper has argued that it is more analytically meaningful to examine how development and security are discursively constructed and contested. In this context, Chinese and Western discourses operate in a dynamic and mutually constitutive relationship. Chinese discourse frames development cooperation in ways that emphasise infrastructure, economic growth, and state-led stability, while also prioritising capacity-building and the enhancement of self-sustaining development capabilities, thereby promoting a particular vision of governance and order. At the same time, Western political and policy narratives respond by securitising Chinese development engagement, framing it in terms of risk, dependency, and geopolitical competition. These narratives do not merely describe reality but serve to legitimise policy responses and sustain competing claims to authority within the global development landscape. 

Through these competing processes of depoliticisation and securitisation, development practices are reframed as matters of governance and security. At stake is not simply whether China poses a threat, but who has the authority to define development, assign risk, and shape the terms of global order. 

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