Over the past decade, China’s increased presence in North Africa has been commonly framed as either European decline and loss of influence, or the rise of China and its aggressive expansionist policies. These arguments, often different sides of the same coin of realpolitik, neglect a simpler explanation, namely that China’s growing presence is not the result of an offensive strategy of displacement, but of a partnership gap created by Europe’s preference for flexibility, reversibility, and political distance in areas such as migration management and energy security.
While European policy has prioritized short-term risk management and insulation from political responsibility, China’s engagement has emphasized long-term, asset-based investments in infrastructure, energy, and logistics.
Europe has sought a foreign policy based on plausible deniability. This approach has not reduced Europe’s presence in the North African region, but it has reshaped how responsibility is managed.
The externalization of migration control illustrates this logic most clearly. As migration became a defining issue in European politics, particularly amid the rise of far-right parties, delivering immediate reductions in arrivals took precedence over structural solutions. Cooperation with North African partners focused on interception and containment beyond EU borders, allowing European governments to claim operational success while distancing themselves from implementation and its consequences. Support for the Libyan Coast Guard exemplified this model: departures fell, but responsibility for enforcement, and for any act that could affect European public sensibilities, was delegated outward.
A similar pattern emerged in Europe’s energy policy after Russia invaded Ukraine. Algeria’s role as a gas supplier gained urgency, prompting intensified engagement driven by short-term supply needs rather than a broader strategic framework. Once again, Europe prioritized insulation from risk over long-term political investment, retaining the option to disengage as circumstances changed.
Together, migration and energy reveal a consistent strategy. Europe has sought to manage exposure rather than shape outcomes, favoring agreements that deliver quick results while limiting political and legal responsibility. This preference for plausible deniability has constrained Europe’s willingness to commit visibly and durably in North Africa. It has also created a space in which other actors, operating according to different logics of engagement, have been able to expand.
Here is where Chinese investment gains importance, not with the intention of displacement, but by filling a vacuum that the European Union has voluntarily vacated. Chinese policy in Africa, and particularly across the Mediterranean from Morocco to Egypt, has been characterized by a willingness to commit to durable and visible projects, often in sectors where exit options are limited and timelines extend well beyond electoral cycles.
Morocco offers a clear illustration. China’s growing role in port construction, logistics, and industrial infrastructure has been most visible around the Tanger Med port complex and its associated industrial zones. Chinese state-backed firms have participated in port-related construction and logistics ecosystems that prioritize long-term throughput, fixed assets, and physical connectivity. These projects do not challenge Europe’s dominant position as Morocco’s main trading partner, nor do they displace EU regulatory influence. Instead, they operate in a complementary space. Where European engagement remains focused on standards alignment, mobility control, and private-sector facilitation, Chinese involvement provides continuity in capital-intensive infrastructure that requires long time horizons and tolerance for sunk costs.
In other words, it is not so much the “what” that matters, but “how.” China accepts exposure in exchange for durability, Europe preserves flexibility at the cost of strategic depth.
A similar dynamic is visible in Algeria, particularly in the energy sector. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Algeria’s importance as a gas supplier to Europe increased sharply, prompting renewed European engagement driven by immediate supply needs. Yet this engagement remained largely transactional, designed to stabilize flows rather than reshape Algeria’s long-term energy governance or investment environment. China’s role, by contrast, has expanded cautiously but consistently through involvement in upstream services, power generation, and supporting infrastructure, often via bilateral agreements that prioritize continuity over conditionality. Here again, China does not replace Europe; it complements Europe’s restraint. Where Europe treats energy cooperation as a hedge, China treats it as an embedded relationship.
Egypt represents perhaps the clearest case of infrastructure as political neutrality. European policy toward Cairo balances strategic cooperation on migration, security, and regional stability with rhetorical concern over repression, resulting in cautious engagement and limited willingness to assume ownership of large-scale projects. Chinese involvement bypasses this tension. From the construction of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital to transport and industrial projects linked to the Suez Canal Economic Zone, Chinese firms have framed their role as technical and developmental rather than political. This model aligns with both Egypt’s governance preferences and China’s broader overseas strategy: political neutrality combined with material commitment. Europe remains diplomatically central, but its reluctance to commit visibly and durably leaves space for this form of engagement.
The longer-term implications of this dynamic extend beyond questions of influence. By structuring its engagement around plausible deniability, Europe limits its own capacity to shape outcomes over time. Infrastructure, energy systems, and logistics networks create path dependencies that outlast political cycles. As Europe avoids ownership of these domains, it also relinquishes agenda-setting power within them. What appears as flexibility in the short term increasingly translates into strategic rigidity, with European policy confined to crisis management while other actors accumulate durable leverage.
It should also be noted that China does not carry a colonial history in North Africa, a legacy that continues to shape perceptions of Europe across its southern neighborhood. This historical memory, which extends into the 21st century through episodes such as the French-led intervention in Libya, has contributed to a persistent trust deficit in relations across the Mediterranean. Within a framework defined by hedging and deniability, European engagement is often received with suspicion, a dynamic that geographical proximity and economic interdependence do not always overcome.
Taken together, these cases point not to a Chinese takeover of North Africa, but to a division of labor shaped by Europe’s own policy choices. Europe retains normative language, regulatory influence, and crisis management capacity. China accepts duration, exposure, and asset-based commitment. North African states navigate between the two. China’s growing role in the region is therefore less a story of strategic competition than of structural complementarity, emerging from Europe’s preference for plausible deniability over long-term ownership.
The implications for both parties contrast in ethos and deliverable results. For Europe, policy toward North Africa is tactical. It is a relationship marked by mistrust, shaped by internal divisions, and oriented toward appeasing domestic political pressures rather than engaging in meaningful partnership. The externalization of migration governance outsources not only enforcement but also the human rights consequences of policies increasingly influenced by xenophobic far-right currents. Energy engagement with one of the region’s largest producers of oil and natural gas emerged only once Russia shifted from partner to adversary. Brussels does not want to be seen making deals in North Africa, and whatever deals it does make must be easily reversible and deniable if they go wrong. Mistrust is thus the organizing principle.
By contrast, China’s approach is strategic. It is unconcerned with appearances and focused on producing tangible outcomes. While China’s ties to North Africa may not be as deeply rooted as Europe’s, given geographic proximity and historical links, they are often more durable and more direct in intent.
This comparison does not draw a picture of competition, but rather of logical consequences. Europe’s preference for flexibility and deniability has narrowed its scope of engagement, even as it remains economically and diplomatically central. Whilst China’s expanding role reflects a willingness to assume duration and exposure, Europe has chosen restraint. The result is a form of structural complementarity, shaped less by strategic rivalry than by Europe’s own governing choices and their self-imposed limits.
