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This article investigates how processes of global development are understood and practiced within an international system that is characterized by unequal relationships. What we know as ‘development’ in the Global South has been defined and dictated by those that caused ‘underdevelopment.’ The practice of development today serves to advance the economic interests of the US-led world order, whose Hegemony imposes ideological constraint that disparage decolonial futures and demoralize peoples across the Global South. However, the economic rise and political prowess of China is transforming the relational dynamics of the international system. Its comprehensive economic investments and political commitments are enticing to many Global South states, who are now presented with an alternate partner to aid them in crafting and implementing their own development agendas. Employing Marxist and Postcolonial theories and concepts, this research contextualizes changes in the global development arena in the enduring (neo)colonial relationships of the international system. The analysis conveys that not only are China’s foreign relations and development cooperation practices categorically different from the West, but its own development trajectory serves as a replicable model for other states. Using a case study of Nigeria, this research outlines historical and contemporary causes of underdevelopment in Nigeria and describes the ways China is conducting international relations differently. Conclusively, inequality is, by design, an integral feature of the current international system and American hegemony maintains the Global South in relations of dependency that aid spending cannot solve. Conversely, China has shown a commitment to non-intervention in states, working in cooperation for mutual benefit with its partners. A comparison of the Western/Capitalist and Chinese/Marxist models of development further illustrates the defunct, irreplicable, and destructive reality of capitalist development. The implications of China’s evolving role in development cooperation and beyond express a paradigmatic shift, as this new multipolarity is providing space for formerly subjugated states and peoples to express and advance their own interests, domestically and internationally.