Both China and Europe can reap the benefits of greater investment in Africa, with associated gains in influence not defined by a zero-sum game, a senior official from the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) has said.
Many in Europe have fretted in recent years over China's increasing leverage in the mineral-rich continent, but the head of cabinet of the ACP's secretariat told MEPs on Wednesday (4 May) that the EU could still secure its interests in the region. "Just because China goes into Africa, doesn't mean that Europe will lose out," Obadiah Mailafia told a conference in Brussels organised by the European Parliament's Green group.
The past decade has seen hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens set up shop across the African continent, aided by loans from a government back home, hungry for raw materials to sustain the country's rapid economic growth.
Reports of badly-built infrastructure, environmental damage and poor treatment of workers have partially soured the relationship in recent years however. "Unfortunately China is not a democracy, which is a limiting factor, and there are certain environment elements which they tend to ignore," Mailafia told the MEPs.
For more: EUobserver / China's rise in Africa does not spell EU decline, says official
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