Did you know that while many other wealthy countries pledged tens of millions of dollars of relief aid to the typhoon-devastated Philippines, nearby China, with the world’s second-largest economy, pledged a whopping — wait for it — $100,000? Ian Bremmer tries to explain it. Excerpt:

 Why is an economy so big, a government so willing to invest abroad, and a country so eager to win favor in the region stiffing a neighbor in need? Because China is still a new enough power that it has no tradition of shelling out helpings of foreign aid — and because the Philippines is not China’s favorite country at the moment.
And despite its successes, China is actually still a poor country. Its per capita income finally topped $9,000 last year, which ranks China about 90th in the world, depending on the exact measure. Nearly 130 million of its people live on less than $1.80 per day. With a renewed sense of urgency to tackle the country’s many economic reform challenges, China has far too many pressing needs at home to be cutting big checks abroad.

This raises broader and deeper questions, says Bremmer, about how one of the world’s biggest economic powers is supposed to behave on the world stage:

What happens when the largest economy is a country that doesn’t want to do the things we expect the largest economy to do? That’s a problem that extends well beyond typhoons, earthquakes and aid.