A European answer to the Chinese question in Africa? The global gateway and European-Chinese competition in Africa

On 1 December 2021 the European Union (EU) launched the Global Gateway. This new European strategy is intended to boost the EU's involvement in areas such as energy and transport sectors, which previously had limited engagement within the broader context of Africa-EU relations. Importantly, EU representatives have openly stated that the Global Gateway is the EU response to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with Africa, thus articulating EU competition with China in Africa. While there is some limited research that has compared the BRI and the Global Gateway, very little has been done on African perceptions on the Global Gateway. The proposed paper will thus focus on how Africa states have reacted to the Global Gateway. Moreover, it will assess the extent to which African states have used the new EU approach to leverage their relations with China in a new geopolitical context that has been likened to a new Cold war. Drawing on ontological security, the paper seeks to understand the new dynamics and contestations within Africa-EU relations in the context of China in Africa hitherto ignored in both mainstream and critical approaches to EU foreign policy studies.