Not long ago China’s engagement in Africa was vilified in Europe and the US. Beijing was criticised for co-operating with regimes in Sudan and Zimbabwe. Chinese companies were berated for their poor social and environmental standards in exploiting natural resources.

But European countries are starting to emulate China’s approach, increasing the focus on trade at the possible expense of development; and Beijing is beginning to look west for lessons on improving the development impact and sustainability of its aid.

To understand the change in China’s approach, it is important to take into account the fast-changing realities of its relations with Africa. For nearly 50 years, co-operation was largely political, built around a shared experience of colonisation. While history is still important to political dialogue, trade and investment have come to dominate relations in the past decade. China’s large and powerful ministry of commerce drives development policy through its department on foreign aid. It seeks to harness the country’s strengths, such as infrastructure development, to those of its resource-rich African partners so that both sides benefit. China overtook the US as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009. Trade rose from $10bn in 2000 to $210bn last year. Chinese companies are also big investors, particularly in natural resources and infrastructure