ABSTRACT
The current geopolitics in Asia is being defined directly and indirectly by the cool war between the US and China. The region also includes a number of BRICs and Next-11 countries which are juxtaposed (or superimposed) within and upon regional geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics. The three leading Asian donors established the Asian Development Forum in 2010. This also includes India and Thailand (Kitano 2012). This chapter considers the current patterns of Asian ODA and how leading Asian donors are justifying and promoting ODA to the Asian region. For Feeny and Clarke (2008: 198) the Asia-Pacific region‘is often said to be making good progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)’ but‘the region is extremely diverse and analysis at the regional level masks significant differences in the progress towards the MDGs made by individual countries’. They also argued that the MDGs have been criticised for being both too ambitious and not ambitious enough, often masking reality by relying too much on‘averages’ and on quantitative rather than qualitative indicators.
