ABSTRACT
Over the last three decades China has experienced unprecedented economic growth. This, in concert with their foreign policy agenda, is positioning China to reclaim a place at the centre of the global economy, which is at the heart of what has been termed the ‘Beijing Consensus’. In essence, this would place China in the position of a global superpower. The foundation of the Beijing Consensus turns western-led ideas on privatisation and free trade upside down, with both a pragmatic and culturally and philosophically based ideological outlook, that is almost the reverse of the ‘one-size-fits-all’ Washington Consensus-based ideology of the multilateral development banks. The impact of this alternative to the existing world order is potentially bringing about the risk of foreign aid fragmentation between China-led Beijing Consensus-based institutions and the USA-dominated Washington Consensus-based institutions. There is a fundamental need to embrace these potential geopolitical and geo-economic impacts in assessing development interventions, and thus they must be part of any PEA.
