Skip to Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues Full Site Menu Skip to main content
Georgetown University Logo

Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

October 23, 2026

United States and Chinese Foreign Assistance and Diplomacy: Aid for Dominance

A Book Talk with Salvador Santino Regilme and Obert Hodzi

Event Series: China and the Global South

RSVP Required
China Aid Investment

In their new book United States and Chinese Foreign Assistance and Diplomacy: Aid for Dominance (2026), Salvador Santino Regilme and Obert Hodzi explore how the United States and China use foreign aid and diplomacy to compete for influence. The book underscores the constitutive relationship between foreign aid as a material resource and the diplomatic discourses and practices that constitute complex bilateral relations between donor and recipient states.  Written by two leading scholars of contemporary United States and Chinese foreign policies in the Global South, Aid for Dominance offers a pioneering, theoretically conscious, and empirically rich account of the two great powers' grand strategies in the global development sector. 

This event is co-sponsored by Georgetown University’s Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, Africa-China Initiative, the African Studies and Asian Studies Programs at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Featuring

Salvador Santino Regilme is an associate professor of international relations at Leiden University. He is a Dutch scholar focusing on international human rights norms, North-South relations, global security issues, and contemporary United States foreign policy. He is the author of Aid Imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia (2021) and editor or co-editor of several books. 

Obert Hodzi is an associate professor in politics at the University of Liverpool. His research focuses on the evolving role of emerging powers in global governance, providing critical insights into how non-Western actors influence international conflict, security frameworks, and the geopolitics of the Global South. Prior to joining Liverpool, Obert held research positions at the University of Helsinki and has been a visiting scholar at Renmin University of China, the Nordic Africa Institute, and Boston University.