Key Points:

• Identity is propagated through planned political discourses backed by concrete policy initiatives attempting at reinforcing political agendas.
• The China-led Southern epistemology is emerging as a new order where the Chinese economic development model stands in contrast to the one dominated by the West, despite operating side by side in the same liberal international order.
• The western global economic development discourse is being overturned with new identity narratives sponsored by China. The patronising power of development discourse inaugurated by these two global powers has created two antagonistic yet seemingly similar ways of redefining the world by creating a “regime of truth”. A truth that is supposedly associated with the eradication of “poverty” by problematising it.
• The Chinese economic model convinces the developing world that the time is ripe to look beyond the discourse of “aid” presented by the West, which seems to be a smokescreen of “altruistic charity” that exploits the developing world and funnels the subsides to US corporations.
• The moral outlook created by China as a provider and an equal partner, questions the contemporary scenario of development cooperation between a developed and a developing trade partner.
• Power relationship cannot be overlooked while talking about Chinese development cooperation as no aid, assistance, and collaboration comes with no strings attached.