Author: Jonathan Holslag.

This report concludes that China has embarked on a well-conceived go-out policy that should enable Chinese companies to gain direct control over African natural resources. The strategy has resulted in a rapidl y accelerating flow of African commodities to the People’s Republic, despite the fact that China’s equity projects in Africa remain limited. The Chinese resources and energy policy tends to confirm the conception of Africa as the world’s mining pit. However, only a small number of African countries reap substantial rewards. Moreover, if we go beyond the national trade statistics, it appears that political elites profit most and that new opportunities are unlikely to trickl e down or to benefit sectors other than the primary sector. With regard to the EU’s Africa policy, China’s reso urces and energy policy undermines both the conditional engagement approach and the actorness of the EU as an international player. We recommend the European Union to: . facilitate further study on the role of and in teraction between all important investors, e.g. Brazil, China, the Gulf states, EU, Indi a, Japan, Russia and the United States; . facilitate informal and formal exchanges between scholars and officials from these countries to explore each other’s interests, policies and expectations; . support the African Union’s initiatives to bring all actors around the table; . support and facilitate the drafting of a deve lopment agenda for Africa (within the NEPAD framework), approved by all major partners; . support and facilitate the formulation of jo int guidelines regarding corporate behaviour and transparency; . concretize the EU’s expectations regarding ex ternal policies in relevant country strategy papers, especially in polic y papers regarding China,; . go beyond the current EU-Afr ican Business Forum and conceive a coherent action plan to stimulate and diversify European investments in Africa; . curb qualitative restrictions and assist Af rica in meeting the EU’s qualitative import criteria.