Power as a concept has a long history of being debated in regards to foreign policy, whereforeign aid as a tool can create asymmetrical power dynamics between donor and recipient.Traditional donors' own national interests have frequently been reduced to security oreconomic motives. China, an independent and emerging donor, is thought to be among themajor donors of foreign aid today. With the growing Belt and Road Initiative, China's globaleconomic ambition is increasing. The general theme of this study is power in relation toforeign aid. The aim is to examine donor motives and how foreign aid can transitioneconomic power to political influence in accordance with Joseph Nye’s theory of power. Inaddition, could China's aid-project be regarded as a “smart power”-strategy? This was doneby examining China’s whitebook on development cooperation through a motive analysis. Inaddition, a method of process-tracing on the case of Chinese aid to Cambodia wasimplemented to examine how China’s foreign aid can manifest as a means of power.Cambodia is a top receiver of Chinese aid, and therefore interesting to explore. The resultsshowed that China’s donor motives can be summarised as security, global development andambition, cooperation, commercial and diplomatic interests. Furthermore, evidence was foundthat Chinese foreign aid can be considered a means of power in Cambodia. Largely becauseof an asymmetrical bilateral relationship as well as Cambodia’s weak state capacity.