China’s emergence in Africa: Challenges and chances to the EU’s Agenda on Development Cooperation

China has grown to become a major trading partner to countries in Sub-Sahara Africa throughout the last 15 years. Historically the EU Member States have been the most important trading partner to the African continent in combination with disbursements of foreign aid. To what extent the emergence of China on the Sub-Saharan sub-continent carries potential for fruitful trilateral development cooperation is elaborated throughout the paper on the basis of careful analysis of trade statistics between 2000 and 2015, aid statistics between 2002 and 2014 and the principles, objectives and instruments forming European and Chinese development thinking.