Megatrends Afrika published in February 2024 a study titled "Climate Collaboration in Multipolar Times: The European Union and China as Energy Transition Partners to African Countries" by Cobus van Staden.
The study concludes that China is increasingly promoting its own environmental, social, and governance norms while trying to reshape the global regulatory environment to be friendlier towards Chinese companies. China's strongest tool in Africa remains less about any direct challenge to European influence, and more about its legacy as an alternative set of options that fractures Euro-American hegemony in African development. A more fundamental challenge for the EU is how willing it is to adapt its African engagement to growing global multipolarity.
