Buying Silence: Maritime Disputes in the South China Sea and Chinese Aid Allocation Patterns for Target Countries

Abstract How does China strategically allocate foreign aid to increase its influence on South China Sea disputes? We posit that China uses foreign aid as a tool of strategic appeasement to manage militarized interstate disputes, particularly targeting claimant states with smaller winning coalitions that are more susceptible to aid influence. The results of our empirical analysis show that China is more likely to allocate aid to the ASEAN SCS claimants with a smaller winning coalition. These findings not only support the notion of foreign aid as a strategic tool employed by China to mitigate tensions in the South China Sea but also highlight the vulnerability of certain recipient states. This article contributes to the foreign assistance and conflict literature by examining the conditionality of claimant donors’ decisions to provide foreign aid to other claimant recipients.