Introduction

At the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, there were deep concerns about how little the geopolitical and economic importance of Africa is compared to major world powers. This is referred to as the marginalization of Africa as the continent was rapidly disconnecting from the world economy without participating in the enormous increase in foreign direct and equity investment (Collier 1995). Obviously, at that moment in history, the African economy was mired in slower growth of output and a lower proportion of formal-sector employment as well as private investment (Mazumdar 1994; Glen and Sumlinski 1995). As a direct result, this marginalization within the world economy led to further marginalization from important international economic institutions dominated by other countries, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). More often than not, the image of Africa was depicted as one involving civil unrest, war, poverty, disease, and economic disorder. Because of these negative perceptions, many potential investors disregarded Africa as a location for foreign investment.

However, China’s entry into Africa was a game-changer and has now resulted in a global rush by major economic powers to compete with China in Africa, leading to what may be called the globalization of foreign investment (Bodomo 2017). In order to understand the term globalization of investment, we need to put the concept of globalization in perspective. There are many definitions and dimensions on globalization which cover a wide range of discourses such as economy, culture, politics, education, and health (Meyer 1980; Robertson 1992; Giddens 1990; Baylis et al. 2017). With a focus on both the technological and the economic aspects of globalization, Bodomo and Che (2020) define it as “a process which involves an increasing interaction of people of different cultures, languages, and identities as more and more efficient transportation and communication technologies facilitate the movement of peoples, goods, and services across vast expanses of the world” (p. 63). Furthermore, the globalization of investment in Africa is viewed as “a process which involves the transformation of the socio-economic, socio-political, and socio-cultural lives of Africans as the foreign investors and the foreign investments they bring from across all parts of the world move into the African continent and how Africans react to and manage this scenario” (Bodomo and Che 2020, p. 63).

At the turn of the millennium, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to Africa barely amounted to US$10 billion. By the end of 2019, the number had climbed to US$45 billion according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 2020). There is no doubt that the global flow of capital investments is shaping the African continent politically, economically, and culturally. In this paper, in addressing two fundamental questions — how do the European Union (EU) and China engage differently in Africa, and if we view China, the EU, and Africa as a troika, what is the most effective way in which Africa can handle this situation to its benefit? — we outline the important roles that the EU and China have played in the globalization of investment in Africa in “The EU in Africa: the traditional player” and “China in Africa: in comes the dragon,” respectively. As suggested by some scholars, China’s approach directly or indirectly stimulated the EU’s new strategies towards Africa (Carbone 2011; Hooijmaaijers 2018; Stahl 2018). As a result, this paper is more focused on the role of China and is dedicated to find the reason behind its success in Africa in recent decades. By comparison, we can see that China has, indeed, created a paradigm shift with respect to its investment engagement with Africa. In “The troika: win–win-lose or win–win-win?,” we extend arguments from our previous work (Bodomo 2017;Bodomo and Che 2020) to say that if Africa does not sharpen its agency, the end result may be that China and the EU may gain at the expense of Africa but that should Africa play a more proactive and controlling role such as enforcing its investment laws, the mid-twenty-first century may yet see a trilateral win–win-win outcome for Africa, China, and the EU. “Conclusion” concludes the paper.

The EU in Africa: the traditional player

As a major player on the continent, the EU is Africa’s first partner in trade, in foreign investment, and in development over the years. In 2020, the EU was the largest trade partner for Africa with 28% of both exports and imports, ahead of China by 12% in imports and 20% in exports.Footnote 1 After a long history of European engagement with Africa, the latter is still deemed to be one of the poorest and least industrialized parts of the world. The question may be asked then: how did this come about?

The past and the present

Since the Age of Discovery in the fifteenth century, the European powers have had a constant presence in Africa. Initially, their purpose was to establish trading posts along the coast as a way of exploring — and eventually colonizing Africa. European colonialism in Africa, often known as the Scramble for Africa, began with the Berlin conference of 1884–1885 when the European powers divided Africa up among themselves without the consent of its people. After the two world wars, the second half of the twentieth century witnessed most African countries regaining their independence from Europe. As the colonial period ended, we could then properly talk of FDI in these African entities because they were formerly counted as integral parts of the European economies. In the early years of independence, weak economic performance was reflected in the poor record of FDI inflows to the African countries. As a whole, Africa did not fare as well as other developing regions. According to a 30-year historical overview of FDI in Africa, “for most of the time since 1970, FDI inflows into Africa have increased only modestly, from an annual average of almost $1.9 billion in 1983–1987 to $3.1 billion in 1988–1992 and $6.0 billion in 1993–1997. While inflows to developing countries as a group almost quadrupled, from less than $20 billion in 1981–1985 to an average of $75 billion in the years 1991–1995, inflows into Africa only doubled during that period” (UNCTAD 1999). Traditionally, the lion’s share of total FDI inflows to Africa belonged to a few countries of Western Europe and the USA: France, Germany, the UK, and the USA, to be specific.

Starting from the turn of the millennium, there has been an FDI boom in Africa due to the globalization of foreign investment, as mentioned earlier. Most of the EU countries substantially raised their stakes in Africa by 2000. For instance, in terms of accumulated FDI inflows to Africa, Denmark exponentially increased its FDI from US$1 million in the years 1991–1995 to US$340 million in the years 1996–2000, Sweden from US$4 million to US$197 million, Austria from US$7 million to US$221 million, and Portugal from US$96 million to US$1560 million, among other European countries. Over a long period from 1981 to 2000, the active European players in Africa have included France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Norway, and Switzerland (UNCTAD 2002). Building on historical advantages, the EU as a whole remains Africa’s main trading partner. In 2018, total trade in goods between the 27 EU countries and Africa reached EUR 235 billion, more than 30% of Africa’s total (UNCTAD 2019). In terms of top investor countries, France is the largest FDI contributor compared to other EU countries. The 2019 UNCTAD report says: “on the basis of FDI stock data through 2017, France continues to be the largest foreign investor in Africa both due to its historical links with a number of countries on the continent and due to large investments in major hydrocarbon-producing economies, particularly Nigeria and Angola. However, the total stock of France’s FDI in Africa was not significantly different in 2017 than in 2013. The Netherlands holds the second largest foreign investment stock in Africa, more than two thirds of which is concentrated in only three countries, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. The total stock of FDI in Africa from both the United States and the United Kingdom has decreased in the last four years, as a result of divestments and profit repatriations. The stock of China’s FDI in Africa, in contrast, increased by more than 50 per cent between 2013 and 2017” (UNCTAD 2019), as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Top 10 investor economies by FDI stock, 2013 and 2017 (Billions of dollars). Source: UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2019

Full size image

Although the global economy is taking a hit from the COVID-19 pandemic since the year of 2020, the EU and Africa envisage a renewed Africa-EU partnership tailored to a post COVID-19 scenario and show tangible actions in the five areas of health, digitalization, agriculture and sustainable food systems, sustainable energy, and transport and connectivity as purported in an Africa-EU leaders’ meeting that took place in December 2020 followed by the 6th EU-African Union Summit in 2022.

Rules of the game

Despite this substantial influx of FDI from the West, the most developed part of the world, Africa has still not developed as much as expected. Ostensibly, it is not only a matter of “big money”; trade and investment policy plays a significant role here as well.

Since the launch of the Africa-EU Strategic Partnership in 2007, the EU has worked for a web of free trade agreements (FTAs) over the last decade, towards a comprehensive strategy with Africa on top of the EU’s 2020 agenda. Being FTAs with a pro-development orientation, Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have been concluded with 40 nations from Africa South of the Sahara giving European companies preferential access to African markets. However, the implementation of these EPAs is not without its challenges. According to a brief report by the European Parliament, civil society and some African governments raised concerns over the EPAs in these aspects: (i) tariff reductions and loss of government revenue, (ii) negative impact of European companies’ competition among local producers, (iii) the threat to African regional integration efforts, and in general, (iv) the argument that EPAs are designed to benefit the EU side rather than pursue African interests (European Parliament 2020).

Following Bodomo (2019), we argue by using three essential features of European investment in Africa that offset benefits of FDI and the general European endeavor especially associated with its old paradigm. First, the EU countries tend to attach many strings of socio-economic conditionalities to their FDI and economic development assistance. Conditionalities are defined as “more or less asymmetrical, arm-twisting requirements that one of the parties in a relationship demands from other parties” (Bodomo 2019, p. 116). To help their own businesses in Africa, the European investors have often employed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) to insist that African economies privatize their government-controlled corporations so that they can reap the benefits of trade liberalization and currency devaluation. As a result, it has further destabilized the economies of these countries. Second, the West, especially Europe and the USA, seeks to impose socio-political conditionalities on Africa and other developing polities. It must be acknowledged that there are good intentions in these conditionalities to fight corruption and challenge dictatorial regimes. There is also no denying the inherent good in multiparty democracy, rule of law, free press, and freedom of speech, but they should not be enforced like a hard pill to swallow. It seems hard for Europe to overcome its neo-colonial, condescending attitude towards Africa. More often than not, this approach has resulted in a myriad of the painful bailout programs. We may look at the case of Mali, for instance. An EU-led donor conference in 2013 agreed to provide 3.25 billion euros for a development plan on condition that the Malian interim government fulfills its promises to democratic and social reforms. What has become of Mali now? The military coups in Mali were still hitting the headlines in 2021. Instead of a hard pill, education and patience is the key to the promotion of human rights and democratic principles. In the last few years, the EU is making a lot of progress by investing in education and skills in Africa. According to a European Commission factsheet,Footnote 2 the EU was investing €1.34 billion between 2014 and 2020 in bilateral education programs. Lastly, Europe has put emphasis on “development aid” rather than on trade and investment. In doing so, it reveals a paternalistic attitude towards Africa as many nations of Europe are former colonial powers. None of their practices led to any definitive economic independence for the African countries. Indeed, they might have benefited more from Africa and thus under-developed Africa over the centuries (Rodney 1972).

China in Africa: in comes the dragon

Chinese investment in Africa

As it is widely recognized, China’s entry into the African markets has given new impetus for these traditional players, especially the EU, to rethink their strategic framework for FDI in Africa (Carbone 2011; Hooijmaaijers 2018; Stahl 2018). Given African economies’ historical reliance on European aid, trade, and investment, African leaders are more willing to accept a direct and focused Chinese approach that comes with fewer strings attached compared with European conditionalities. There are claims that China’s acceleration of its investment in Africa over the past three decades is mainly because of its growing demand for natural resources to fuel its domestic economy (Deepak 2014; Mhandara et al. 2013; Okolo and Akwu 2016). However, China’s presence in Africa is not purely driven by economic factors. Since the years of decolonization, China has established diplomatic relations with many African countries by lending them financial and technical support. For example, it built from 1970 to 1975 the longest railway in Africa South of the Sahara — the Tazara railway — as well as the largest single foreign-aid project undertaken by China at the time. With these commitments, China has gained a lot of African leaders’ political support within the United Nations (UN) from the Cold War era onwards. The creation of the Forum for Africa-China Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 was another milestone in the development of Africa-China relations. This triennial gathering, including the African Union Commission, China, and 50 African Countries, provides a reciprocal dialogue mechanism between China and African countries within the framework of South-South cooperation. Ever since, China’s investment in Africa has been growing rapidly. The success of this model of regional cooperation has subsequently inspired the formation of a series of political and economic fora, such as the G20 Compact with Africa pushed by the German Government, the US initiative Prosper Africa, Russia’s inaugural summit in 2019, and the India-Africa Forum Summit.Footnote 3

Nowadays, China is already one of Africa’s biggest economic partners among countries investing in Africa. According to a 2017 McKinsey report (Sun et al. 2017), China ranks first place in terms of trade, FDI growth, and infrastructure financing (see Table 1). Investment-wise, China is a latecomer to Africa compared to the European countries. It is therefore not surprising that its FDI stock is relatively low, but its growth rate is extremely remarkable.

Table 1 China’s economic performance in Africa
Full size table

On the other hand, the volume of investment can also be viewed with regard to projects, jobs created, and capital. As published by the European Parliament, during 2014–2018, the USA and France were holding the largest number of projects in Africa, followed by the UK and China, while China accounts for the largest share of jobs created and capital inflows to Africa (European Parliament 2020), as shown in Table 2. Admittedly, there may be many more of the jobs created in Africa by Chinese that are held by Chinese. Furthermore, the overall number of jobs generated by the ten largest investors put together was still extremely low and grossly insufficient. The EU is now making more efforts for job creation and sustainable development for Africa, as outlined by the former President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker “Europe and Africa share a long history and a bright future. This is why I proposed a new Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs, to help attract both European and African investment and create 10 million jobs in Africa over the next five years”.Footnote 4

Table 2 Ten largest investors (2014–2018)
Full size table

In this era of globalization of investment, China’s engagement in Africa has not been met without criticism (Brautigam 2009; Wissenbach 2009; Berger and Wissenbach 2007; Mohan and Lampert 2012; Li 2016; Bodomo 2009, 2018). The emergence of China as a new economic power and its deep ties with Africa is attracting much attention from the international community, especially sustained critiques from Africa’s traditional donors. More often than not, the term neo-colonialism is used to describe China’s relationship with Africa (e.g., Rich and Recker 2013). Some also argue that China is a new economic imperialist in Africa (e.g., Okeowo 2013) or a pure capitalist investor in Africa (e.g., Clarkson 2015). It was reported that there might be fierce competition between the disadvantaged locals and Chinese entrepreneurs, especially in the informal economic sector (Adisu et al. 2010). Notwithstanding these issues, the partnership is largely appreciated by African leaders and its populace as it has boosted Africa’s growth and made positive impact on the development of Africa (Eisenman and Kurlantzick 2006; Rotberg 2008; Bodomo 2019; Bodomo and Che 2020). According to Wike’s (2015) Pew Global Attitudes survey, African respondents had a significantly positive view of China — 70% with a favorable view, making Africa the region of the world where China’s image is strongest. So what, in actuality, accounts for China’s groundbreaking record in Africa in recent decades?

The paradigm shift

In this section, we claim that China’s engagement with Africa in the twenty-first century represents a paradigm shift that has brought radical changes to the African investment sphere. This paradigm shift is comprised of three distinctive aspects, as mentioned earlier, and which we now elaborate here: (i) the volume of engagement, (ii) the speed and efficiency, and (iii) the very discourse of trade and investment. These three features constitute a stark contrast with what we see with European involvement in Africa (Meidan 2006; Downs 2007; Bodomo 2017).

The volume of engagement

As observed by Chen et al. (2018), China’s investment is different from the global pattern. Contrary to the fact that most FDI goes to advanced economies, with the USA holding six times as much of the world’s direct investment as in Africa, China has invested more extensively in Africa than in the USA across 49 African countries.Footnote 5 China’s engagement in Africa, in the meantime, covers a wide array of sectors including transport infrastructure, energy, metals, real estate, utilities, technology, finance, agriculture, and others.Footnote 6 China has become the largest infrastructure financier in Africa (Sun et al. 2017). In 2015, China contributed US$21 billion to infrastructure construction in Africa, which is more than the combined total of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa.Footnote 7 There are many African flagship infrastructure projects supported by Chinese institutions. A case in point is Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, coming at a cost of US$3.8 billion, and China’s EXIM bank funded more than 90% of it.Footnote 8 Nearly half of Africa’s international engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) market are assigned to Chinese contractors who are in charge of six of the ten largest international EPC contractors operating in Africa.Footnote 9 According to a 2019/2020 public opinion survey by Afrobarometer, China edged out the USA to be the most positive external influence in Africa as 59% of respondents “think that the economic and political influence of China is mostly positive”.Footnote 10 Chinese investment in infrastructure and other development has been the factor that contributes most to a positive image of China in Africa (Lekorwe et al. 2016).

The speed and efficiency

In contrast with many of its European competitors, China manages its investment programs with extraordinary speed and efficiency through a non-traditional path of development. As a centralized and authoritarian country, China has been constantly attacked for its lack of democracy and human rights by its western counterparts. However, it is also undeniable that this centralized governance model gives China a competitive edge over the process of its decision-making and the implementation of its projects. In less than four decades, China has lifted about 800 million people out of poverty with an unprecedented level of effectiveness.Footnote 11 Not surprisingly, China has been translating this governance of speed and efficiency in its relations with Africa. For African government officials, China’s contribution to infrastructure in Africa is usually associated with three benefits: cost effectiveness, administrative efficiency, and speedy delivery. According to one interviewee in the 2017 McKinsey report, Chinese projects can be agreed to within months, and in contrast, multilateral donor-funded projects take years. Accompanying speed and efficiency, there is always a concern about the quality of these projects. The McKinsey report points out that these advantages do not seem to compromise the quality of infrastructure; no difference is found between the quality of work performed by Chinese and non-Chinese contractors in terms of World Bank infrastructure projects, as scholars have said (e.g., Farrell 2016).

The very discourse of trade and investment

As opposed to the West’s socio-political conditionalities, China takes a non-interventionist approach to the internal affairs of African countries in a way that the West has never managed to fathom, being a major ingredient of China’s success in Africa. This Chinese model of cooperation culminated in President Xi’s announcement of a “five-no” approachFootnote 12 at the Beijing summit of 2018 FOCAC which has been received as a real commitment to be a “friend in need” for Africa. Chinese engagement in Africa in the twenty-first century is more oriented on investment and trade rather than on aid (Moyo 2009, 2010; Bodomo 2013). While it is the case that the West has a tendency to solve humanitarian problems by providing Africa with “aid” packages, China’s idea of aid is closer to “development assistance” in the sense that the billions of dollars channeled to Africa are concessional and repayable long-term loans. If we have a look at what is characterized as the “Angola Model”,Footnote 13 we can see how the process works. Angola used to be a country with low credit ratings eschewed by the international financial market; but despite its economic, social, and political risks, China made financing available to Angola through oil-backed loans. As a result, Angola has obtained economic growth and infrastructure development, with China, on the other hand, importing thousands of barrels of petroleum daily from Angola. As a matter of fact, leading Western banks were doing the same in some African countries such as Angola and Ghana, but only China succeeded in making it a model to scale. Some may argue that it is an act of grabbing the “assets,” but rationally speaking, the nature of these acts is nothing but self-interest-driven businesses: every party involved gets what they want most. Nevertheless, when compared to its whole dimension of investment in Africa, China’s “development assistance” is merely a sideline business in terms of trade and investment. As we can see from Table 1, as of 2015, Africa-China bilateral goods traded reached a significant US$188 billion, compared to its US$6 billion aid and US$21 billion infrastructure financing. As a patient investor, China’s steady growth of FDI in Africa year by year over the last two decades says it all on why it is Africa’s biggest economic partner today among countries investing in Africa, only second to a power bloc such as the EU.

In terms of these three features and many more, China’s investment is not following the footsteps of the Western countries but creating a paradigm shift that has impacted Africa’s investment sphere profoundly. Admittedly, whether it is the traditional European framework or the new Chinese paradigm, neither of them have met without criticisms on their path to Africa. The dynamic is usually fantasized to be of competitive nature. But a more constructive question should be: is there a middle way where the EU, China, and Africa can meet for an optimal result?

The troika: win–win-lose or win–win-win?

Recently, after two decades or more of criticism of the WestFootnote 14 on Chinese engagement with Africa on many fronts, we began to hear voices advising the EU to cease attacks on China in its African foray (Berger and Wissenbach 2007; Wissenbach 2009). This political volte-face showed a certain practical sagacity given China’s growing importance as a global actor and its intensifying presence in Africa. In 2008, the European commission even proposed to establish trilateral dialogue and cooperation between the EU, Africa, and China. So far, no tangible effects of this trilateral engagement have materialized yet. However, the notion is still prominent in the EU’s political discourse on China affairs (Bertucci and Locatelli 2020), being reiterated on several official occasions such as the 21st China-EU Summit (held in Brussels in April 2019) and the 11th Round of China-European Union Consultation on African Affairs (held in Beijing in July 2019). For the EU, “China’s increased international presence can offer major opportunities for trilateral cooperation and positive engagement, when demand-driven and based on mutual interests and understanding, in regions of priority importance for the EU, such as Africa” (European Commission 2019).

Win–win-lose

Although it is stated in different ways so many times, this tripartite partnership has never been clearly articulated in the EU’s policy discourse with a clear and commonly agreed definition (Stahl 2015). Concerning the various discourses it is often mentioned, it seemingly suggests that it will be beneficial to China, the EU, and Africa if the EU and China team up in their investments, trade, and humanitarian activities in Africa. But it is a questionable concept: Why has the EU advocated a trilateral cooperation after two decades or more of criticism on Chinese engagement with Africa? Are all three parties able to win within this scenario of China-West collaboration in Africa? Or is it only to be in the interest of the EU? As it was initiated in 2008, the Chinese side was not particularly keen on a trilateral dialogue with the EU and Africa, but over time, some Chinese academics and institutions started going along with it as an an opportunity to boost China’s image internationally and in Africa (Luo and Zhang 2011), probably as a way to mitigate the weight of Western criticism too. No matter how the EU and China have reached a subtle consensus on this position, the foundations of such a position are quite shaky which are not commensurate with contemporary ways of viewing Africa in the new millennium. The African Union and its member states even saw it as an imposition of EU priorities and standards on African affairs without adopting African ones (Stahl 2015). We further argue that this position would repeat the old normative EU approach towards Africa even if it was recapitulated in the form of teamwork with China, the fastest developing country globally, and indeed the second largest economy, together to enhance more effective and more targeted delivery of aid.Footnote 15 At its core, it reflects a patently Western paradigm to African development: Africa is still subject to paternalism, which in reality signifies a basket case of aid and a humanitarian burden; unlike China, Africa is not, first and foremost, a trade and investment opportunity for the EU. Furthermore, an ill-stated and flawed concept of trilateral cooperation tends to interfere into African affairs. For example, the rationale for a tripartite meeting like the Monrovia meetingFootnote 16 is hardly convincing which was intended for the parties to discuss the role of companies as regards economic and social development in Africa, while a multinational, UN-style meeting is needed especially when dealing with a comprehensive concept such as social development for a whole landmass. This kind of issues should resort to more international and necessarily multilateral expertise with truly altruistic preoccupations in lieu of a small circle of profit-oriented top-notch economic and investment technocrats.

Far from being well-founded, this proposal to build a trilateral relationship thus seems to start off on the wrong foot by failing to adequately take African needs and priorities into consideration. Not surprisingly, this could lead to a Win–Win-Lose scenario against Africa.

Win–win-win

Despite its flaws, there are potentials for a tripartite partnership to turn into a Win–Win-Win situation by addressing four fundamental issues. First, it is not justified why Africa should be a locus for China-West cooperation. For any two power blocs, analysts often take Africa to be the locus of cooperation without any attempt to justify the assumption. Of course, this kind of fallacy is deep-rooted in the old paradigm of donor-recipient relationship instead of a partnership of equals with Africa in terms of trade and business investment. As a result, it is challenging for proponents of this hypothesis of China-West cooperation to generate logical argumentations about why Africa would be a beneficiary to this. Second, Africa should benefit equally from this model of cooperation. One may wonder if Africa would be better off taking charge of its own agenda and developing a bilateral dialogue with one outside power bloc at a time so as to avoid being exploited by two blocs concurrently to their advantage. For one thing, African states do not seem to have higher bargaining powers in doing so at its current stage; for another, a dynamic tripartite relationship might gain Africa more power and leverage to negotiate with China and the EU on an equal footing. Otherwise, this trilateralism would never become a central topic within the African Union. Hence, the EU’s proposal for trilateral cooperation should not only organise official meetings with China but also seek exchanges with African authorities at the same time in parallel with official occasions such as the 21st China-EU Summit and the 11th Round of China-European Union Consultation on African Affairs, both held in 2019, for the sake of the creation of an inclusive and effective trilateral partnership. Third, there is the albatross of differences in diplomatic philosophies. How would China-West cooperation solve contemporary African problems? We may look at the Darfur problem. The situation in the two Sudans has been worsened due to the differences in policies, diplomatic ideas, and philosophies between China and the West about how to handle the (the now defunct) Al-Bashir divisive rule, leaving the Darfur problem unresolved till now. There might be a glimpse of hope for peace in the region as a referendum has successfully led to independence for South Sudan in July 2011 and several new governments have now succeeded the Al Bashir government, but any Sudan analyst would agree that real peace can come to the two Sudans only when the Darfur case is solved too. In addition to the complexity of the situation per se, the irony is that the West, especially the USA, is often locked with China in geopolitical and ideological competition. As two competing superpowers, China-West relations are often at their lowest ebbs on many issues in the world. The EU — usually a close ally of the USA with a similar set of values — definitely needs to contemplate concrete illustrations for finding common ground on how best to address these issues in regard to their blueprint for trilateral cooperation with China and Africa and reconcile the variety of interests and priorities that different EU member-states hold. Lastly, lessons must be taken from contemporary scenarios. We must be aware of the limitations of such trilateralism and the like. A resolution of the international issue is a concerted effort from all major countries across the globe. Many Civil wars in Africa are to be addressed within the aegis of the United Nations, including classical cases such as the Angolan Civil war, the Rwandan genocide, the diamond wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and contemporary ones like the crises in the Sahel (Mali, Burkina, Guinea, etc.) to name just a few.

  Given all these discussions so far, we thus propose an alternative hypothesis, stated as follows:

China-Africa-EU WWW-hypothesis:

In a twenty-first century era marked by free trade and globalization of investment, Africa must place itself at the centre of trilateral cooperation of China, Africa, and the EU, by assuming a proactive and controlling role in deciding how it opens up its investment sphere to foreign investors given fair and equitable rules of engagement. Only in this way can a Win-Win-Win situation exist in reality.

This Africa-centred trilateralism hypothesis has, at least, these three features. First, it ensures a level-playing ground for all players in the field, being fair and equitable. Second, it prioritizes African needs and viewpoints. With Africa in the driver’s seat, no one can decide for Africa how it opens up its investment sphere to foreign investors. Third, it is not exclusionary. On the African side, it means a welcome and healthy development for other emerging investors as well, such as the BRIC nations, namely Brazil, Russia, India, and China. In reality, it is not only a win–win-win but also a win-for-all hypothesis.

There may be a possible counter-argument against this hypothesis: Africa appears too weak and disorganized and thus lacks the ability to effectively determine and regulate investment in its own territory. Such an afro-pessimistic way of looking at the issues should be replaced with growth mindset, as many individual countries on the continent are fast democratizing and making rational decisions on their own investment resources. Moreover, in recent years, especially as the African Union (AU) starts taking its responsibilities more seriously, African countries together are formulating coherent and structured plans to push more effectively towards economic integration as well as a pan-African market.Footnote 17 For example, 44 countries signed off the agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in 2018 which aims to “accelerate intra-African trade and boost Africa’s trading position in the global market place” (African Union, 2018).Footnote 18 In the meantime, African leaders must, individually, have in mind a clear and strategic policy, sharpening and enforcing Africa’s investment laws to ensure protection for both the local population and the foreign investors. Remarkably, the Pan-African Investment Code (PAIC) promoted by the AU provides a treasure trove of investment treaty with a view to sustainable development, investor obligations, and pre-establishment commitments. The fact that there are external challenges like WTO rules does not mean Africa should uphold the status quo. Other entities of the world also face these external rules and yet are able to manage their investment to their advantage. Africa should not be an exception.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have addressed two fundamental questions: how do the EU and China engage differently in Africa, and if we view China, the EU, and Africa as a troika, what is the most effective way for Africa to act so that it can benefit from its engagement with China and the EU? Compared to the traditional European players, China has, indeed, created a paradigm shift with respect to its investment engagement with the African continent. This paradigm shift may be calibrated in terms of the volume of engagement, in terms of the speed and efficiency with which investment projects are completed, and in terms of the very discourse of trade and investment. We have also argued that the so-called EU-China-Africa trilateral dialogue and cooperation, which seems to say that it will be beneficial to China, the EU, and Africa if the EU and China team up in their investments, trade, and humanitarian activities in Africa, could end up creating a win–win-lose scenario against Africa. Instead, a win–win-win situation must be based on at least three considerations: (i) Africa should benefit equally from this model of cooperation, (ii) there is the albatross of differences in diplomatic philosophies which must be resolved, and (iii) lessons must be learnt from contemporary scenarios to improve cooperation outcomes.

We thus have proposed an alternative China-Africa-EU WWW-hypothesis: in a twenty-first century era marked by free trade and globalization of investment, Africa must place itself at the centre of the trilateral cooperation involving Africa, China, and the EU, by assuming a proactive and controlling role in deciding how it opens up its investment sphere to foreign investors given fair and equitable rules of engagement. Only in this way can a win–win-win situation exist in reality. Our hypothesis sees Africa at the centre of the action that involves levelling the playing ground and ensuring an equal opportunity to all other investors, such as those of the BRIC countries and more. It is inherently not only a win–win-win but also a win-for-all hypothesis. All investors may find their investment space on a continent as vast as Africa. In the meantime, Africa must decide on its own terms and open up its investment sphere to all foreign investors given equitable trade and investment policies and rules. In this era characterized by the globalization of investment, Africa must step up to clear investment choices in order to pursue sustainable development.