China’s international development cooperation (IDC) has entered a new phase of institutional and strategic reform. This issue brief traces the evolution from traditional foreign aid to a coordinated, results-oriented IDC model, anchored by the 2018 establishment of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA). It analyses recent policy, legal and financing innovations - including the 2021 White Paper’s terminology shift, the Global Development Initiative, the 2023 Law on Foreign Relations, and a new generation of funds and project pools - and maps entry points for multilateral cooperation to advance the SDGs under the “full-chain management” framework mandated by the Third Plenum.