China's rapid rise as a global economic power was brought into sharp relief during the March 2009 G-20 finance ministers meeting when, for the first time, pundits speaking about the event used the label "G-2" to signal that the world -- economically speaking -- now had two contending powers: China and the United States.

China's rise has, in turn, sparked enormous interest in its development model and the contrast that presents to much of the "Washington Consensus" on development policy. At the same time, the Chinese have sharply increased their foreign assistance, most visibly in Sub-Saharan Africa, after a lull of several decades. China's development aid reflects, in part, its understanding and assumptions about the road out of poverty. In this and other ways, it presents a challenge to the international aid architecture. ...