It’s easy to be skeptical of China’s overseas aid as a gambit to control smaller countries. The Chinese 4-year-old, $900 billion belt-and-road initiative aimed at building public infrastructure all over Asia effectively widens trade routes from China into Europe. China’s development aid to Africa totaled 47% of its total foreign assistance in 2009 alone, and from 2000 to 2012 it funded 1,666 official assistance projects in 51 African countries, according to the Brookings Institution. China’s a major miner in Africa, and aid for public infrastructure makes that business easier.

Still, China gives more than it receives in aid and it’s moving up in the charts toward the levels of historically bigger donors such as the United States and Western Europe.

In 2014, China received a net negative $947 million in assistance and the following year a net negative $332 million, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says here. Those figures imply it gave more than it took.

Read the full article about the foreign aid coming from China by Ralph Jennings at Forbes.