Chinese delegates observing the recent European Union-Africa summit must have left reassured that their own relations with the continent are the more dynamic. Try as they did, Europe's leaders were unable to quash recriminations from their African counterparts over trade, or smother controversy among their own nationals about the invitation of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader.

Ghosts from the colonial past haunted the agenda, even though the Lisbon meeting was billed as the occasion to exorcise them and move on.