The New Rush for Africa: Can the EU Challenge China's Growing Influence?

The Global South has long been a battlefield between the great powers of the world. While the military ones receive the most attention (for obvious reasons), the majority of current conflicts taking place there tend to be economic and diplomatic in nature… although that doesn’t mean they aren’t bitterly fought. Case in point: the great new economic war for influence.

The Global South is in dire need of loans and investments - for example, according to the African Development Bank, as of 2025, the African infrastructure deficit is approximately €146 billion and growing, while the entire world’s deficit stands at a staggering €34.3 trillion. This is a major opportunity for the current great powers to expand their foreign influence. Unsurprisingly to most at this point, the first great power to jump at this opportunity wasn’t the US - it wasn’t even the EU (which is at the very least, a great power in economic terms).  It was China - and they’ve been very successful. For those worried about Beijing’s growing reach, there is a silver lining  - Chinese activity has forced the EU to react. It’s this reaction that’s at the heart of the new economic war.

Competition over the Global South

For the past few decades, the EU has tried to maintain its influence by being the world’s leading aid provider to the Global South – in 2020 alone, the EU spent nearly €70 billion on development aid. Unfortunately, this has not achieved the EU’s primary stated goal - to increase the standards of living in the Global South - as those aid packages were done haphazardly, with little to no coordination between the EU member states and with inadequate long-term planning. Even worse, the EU has gotten very little out of it, since the aid money is not an investment (meaning that it’s gone forever) and – despite the copious amounts of resources given to them – the Global South shows diminishing allegiance towards the West. To be cynical about it, the most tangible result has been the growing domestic opposition against foreign aid, which an ever-growing part of the EU member states' electorate sees as a waste of their money.

Now, one could argue that the EU’s real objective is to increase its soft power and that claiming anything else is intellectually dishonest. At the end of the day though, if the EU securing its own interests also results in improvement to the Global South’s standards of living, then all is well. There’s just one tiny problem though - neither of these goals have been achieved. Although the EU still wields significant influence in North Africa for example, it has not even stagnated, but heavily deteriorated. The EU’s export share has fallen from 67% of North Africa’s total exports in 1999 to 53% in 2019. In the same time frame, the EU’s import share in North Africa has fallen from 55% to 39%. Furthermore, the West's political influence in the Global South shows signs of degradation as well - the UN’s 2022 vote to simply condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was notable for nearly half (23/54) of all African nations abstaining from voting.

At the same time, China and Russia have been busy expanding their influence into regions where the West has traditionally dominated, chief among them being Africa. Russia has been expanding its presence in Africa mainly through its infamous PMC-s (private military companies) that serve as military advisors and mercenaries to the local autocrats - the classic brute force tactics that Russia is known, but definitely not loved for. The Chinese approach has been a great deal more sophisticated (as it often tends to be, at least when compared to Russia).

Since launching its Belt and Road initiative (BRI) in 2013, China has rapidly become a major player in developmental cooperation. This has enabled China to expand its sphere of influence over many African nations, which has rubbed the EU the wrong way (to put it mildly). Aside from threatening to diminish the EU’s influence in Africa - which we can’t be angry at, at least not morally - China also has no qualms about the long-term damages its development projects might cause to the environment. Their only objective is to make the Global South’s countries completely dependent on them, which is usually not how you stabilize an already unstable region. This isn’t merely Western propaganda - the Global South’s countries themselves have criticized China for its nontransparent loan terms and the lack of long-term viability of many BRI projects. To be fair, Chinese development cooperation has its own advantages as well - the BRI’s flexible and detail-oriented approach stands in stark contrast with the EU’s overly bureaucratic tendencies, which the Global South doesn’t seem to be too fond of for some reason.

Unfortunately, the EU's problems with China don’t end there. European high-tech industry is completely dependent on Chinese strategic minerals - for example, according to 2024 statistics, 90% of the world’s rare earth metals refining and manufacturing originates from China. For context, from phones to cars, all modern technology contains rare earth metals. This dependency gives China too much leverage against the EU, which is consequently a direct security threat for all of the EU’s member states. While this is an important, but small slice of the EU-China trade, the big picture doesn’t look much better either. As of 2024, China is the EU’s largest trading partner, accounting for 21.3% of all the EU’s imports. Conversely, the EU only accounts for 8.3% of China’s imports. If the EU-Chinese relations suddenly worsened (perhaps due to a blockade or invasion of a certain island), such a trade disparity would either make the EU subservient to Chinese interests or force the bloc to suffer a steep and sudden economic depression, similar to what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Only it would be much, much worse, since the Chinese economy is around nine times larger than Russia’s.

Time to Change Course?

The main issue with the EU’s current development cooperation is that it was badly coordinated in the best case - most EU countries approached development cooperation individually and this fragmented approach resulted in increased costs and decreased efficiency. The potential solution to this longstanding problem was announced in 2021: the Global Gateway (GG) project. GG’s goal is to centralise the EU development cooperation projects, as well as creating a more transactional cooperation model. Instead of just giving aid for charity’s sake, the new development cooperation model emphasises investments in projects that could bring long-term benefits to both parties. In a perfect world, every GG project should also be a part of a greater strategy, but with the EU being as decentralised as it is, it’s a naïve hope.

In any case, the main focus of these investments will be on green and sustainable infrastructure projects and the diversification of strategic mineral sources (meaning opening new mines and factories). The EU is expecting to invest about €300 - €400 billion by 2027 in various GG projects around the world, and the funding for it is expected to come from both public and private sectors. Through this, the EU expects to hit two birds with one very expensive stone - lessening its own dependency on Chinese imports, and mitigating the impact of global warming.

Around half of the GG’s funding is planned for projects in Africa. The reasoning to focus on Africa is multifaceted - aside from being geographically close to the EU, Africa’s population growth at current trends is expected to be - to use a scientific term - mindboggling. Most projections expect it to grow from the current 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion by 2050. Being the world’s least stable and most aid-dependent continent however, long term projections should be taken with a fistful of salt. Even so, such a rapid population growth would drastically raise the entire continent’s need for jobs, as well as industry, which in turn cannot be built without decent infrastructure. In addition, around 30% of the world's critical raw material deposits can be found in Africa.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t just another case of Brussels talking the talk but not walking the walk. Some of the GG’s projects are already in the works, one of the more interesting ones being the “Lobito Corridor” running through the Congo DR’s, Zambian and Angolan territories. It’s a physical infrastructure project that seeks to connect mineral deposits in the area to the Port of Lobito. The GG also aims to develop its partners’ digital infrastructure - the MEDUSA Cable is a 7100 km optical fiber submarine cable in the Mediterranean, expected to connect Europe and Africa by 2026.

The flipside is that all this will be staggeringly expensive, and it raises the question: should the EU really be looking to invest so much in the Global South? Afterall, the bloc has only spent half of this on supporting Ukraine. While the EU could indeed support Ukraine more and while €300 - 400 billion is a massive amount of money by any metric, in reality it’s barely enough to keep pace with China, which spent over €100 billion on BRI just in 2024. The EU’s GG budget is meant to last over a 5-6 year period, so if anything, the EU is in danger of being overspent. Turns out that challenging China - even if it’s only an economic challenge - is simply a lot more expensive than doing the same to Russia.

Problems

Although championing a more transactional approach in developmental cooperation, the EU still aims to spread Western values through its GG projects - democracy, human rights, the rule of law, etc. Until now, Kenya has widely been regarded as a model recipient state for development cooperation, as it’s relatively stable and democratic, at least by African standards. Kenya is also rather large, with a population of around 56 million, which translates into a large market, which in turn enables more and bigger investments. There are two glaring problems with Kenya though. First off, earlier this year Kenya was rocked by country-wide protests against corruption, which the local government quelled with extreme brutality - not exactly what one would associate with terms like “democracy” and “the rule of law”.

Secondly, the GG is still in its infancy, so perhaps it would’ve been more prudent to start with “pilot projects” in smaller, more stable and actually democratic African states like Botswana and Namibia. These countries have untapped mineral deposits and due to their small size, it stands to reason that these projects would also be smaller and thus could be completed faster, which would quickly bring much-needed positive attention towards the GG.

For context, Botswana is the African country with the longest unbroken streak of democratic governance - so if anyone deserves value-based development cooperation, it's them. There’s an argument to be made of course, that an already relatively well-developed nation like Botswana might not need further developmental cooperation. If we’re looking at it from an altruistic point of view, this thought process makes sense - aid should go to those who need it the most. However, if we’re looking at it from the GG’s new, more transactional lens, then it’s probably more beneficial to invest in a country that already has a solid foundation.

Some experts who’ve worked on the GG have also raised concerns on how its “more transactional approach” is to be interpreted. The EU is made up of 27 countries, which means that there are 27 different ways to interpret it. After all, if every member of a group project has a different understanding on what the outcome should be, then more often than not, the final result tends to not be ideal. The EU is decentralised by design and all its member states have their own priorities - this is also evident when we look at the GG’s “flagship” projects.

Normally the “flagship” designation would insinuate that the thing it’s attached to has more importance for some reason, but since all of the EU’s members can nominate flagship projects, the outcome has been… weird. As of 2025, the GG has 264 flagship projects. Now, basic common sense dictates that if everything is special, then nothing really is, and if the EU tries to treat most of the GG’s projects with special care, then its attention will inevitably become divided. Admittedly, recent events have shown that the EU is able to form a more-or-less unitary front when push comes to shove, but whether it applies to the GG as well is anyone’s guess. The European Commission has acknowledged that it's a problem and the number of newly approved flagship projects has been decreasing year on year, so that’s something at least.

It’s not all doom and gloom though - there have been some very positive recent developments for the GG. One of the early core problems was its financing - the initially planned €300 billion investment target was to be reached by 2027 by using both the public sector’s resources, as well as attracting private investments. There was some concern whether or not the EU was able to attract enough private investment - there were no rules, financial incentives or guarantees for businesses, which made the participation of the private sector risky, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises that don’t exactly have excess resources to lose. Consequently, this could have been very bad news for the smaller EU member states, most of whom don’t have businesses that could be considered large - at least not on the global scale.

Thankfully, this issue has seemingly been resolved - Ursula von der Leyen announced in October of 2025 that the GG’s target goal had already been reached and that a new target of €400 billion was set by 2027. While this is definitely good news on the finance front, it also signals that the private sector (whose only job is to make profits) sees real potential in the GG - enough to put their own wallets on the line.

Conclusion

The GG is definitely a step in the right direction for the EU. For years, Europeans have become increasingly frustrated as to why we’ve spent massive amounts of resources on the Global South for so long, without getting anything in return. That’s a fair criticism. The simple answer is that soft power is unquestionably important and right now - as the US-EU relations are at their lowest point since the bloc’s founding - we need new allies more than ever and the Global South has many prospects. Even so, time has proven that regressing back to the previous “aid based” development cooperation model will not bring results. There’s a long way to go to secure the GG’s success - the European Commission has done an excellent job in gathering the GG’s funding, but now they need to work even harder to ensure that these funds will not go to waste. As it stands, the greatest danger facing the GG seems to be the EU’s already decentralised nature, which could be compounded by the potential lack of focus due to the ridiculous number of flagship projects. This could be a perfect recipe for an unnecessary wastage of funds.

The EU’s annoyance with not being taken seriously on the world stage will only get worse if we do not start taking ourselves seriously, and the success of the GG is one of the ways to show our mettle. There’s already significant motivation for us to get our act together - all that remains is to find out if we have the strength of will to carry it out.

Lastly, for those who have already given up hope on the EU delivering anything - there’s an official background paper from the 2025 GG Forum that has a comprehensive understanding of the EU’s current geopolitical urgency and is refreshingly direct about what needs to be done. While this is only a background paper, it proves that at least someone in the European Commission understands our current geopolitical situation and more importantly - has the right solutions. So, perhaps it’s not worth giving up hope just yet.

Sources

• iea.org
• consilium.europa.eu
• en.wikipedia.org
• greenfdc.org
• developmentaid.org
• ec.europa.eu
• researchgate.net
• commission.europa.eu
• eunews.it
• ecdpm.org
• edition.cnn.com
• data.consilium.europa.eu