Not as bad as it seems: EU and US democracy promotion faces China in Africa

The European Union (EU) and the United States (US) are among the most important actors that have the explicit objective to promote democratic reforms in Africa and other regions. However, as China has provided substantial volumes of aid, loans, trade and direct investments to African countries,1 the context in which the EU and US seek to promote democratic reforms has been changing considerably. In the media, among policy-makers, and academia, the presence of China is widely assumed to make it more difficult for the US and EU to support democratic reforms in third countries, particularly in Africa. EU diplomats in Uganda, for

∗Email: christine.hackenesch@die-gdi.de

Sun, Yun. “China and the Changing Myanmar.” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 31, no. 4 (2013): 51-77.