The relatively sudden appearance of thousands of Chinese people in Africa’s towns and cities garners attention, writes Yoon Jung Park.
|||#Focac: Regardless of the long history of Chinese moving and settling overseas and notwithstanding the huge numbers of Chinese moving from one city to the next within China, the stories of the Chinese in Africa (and the reverse, of Africans in China) continue to elicit special interest from scholars and the media.
Why do one million Chinese in Africa demand such attention when there are higher numbers of other “movers” around the globe?
Some answers can be found in shifting global power and China’s rise on the world stage and the differences in historical ties between regions.
Most Africans and those who study Africa are familiar with the various tropes of whites in Africa: colonial administrators & settlers, adventurers, development workers. Most are also familiar with the few other “foreign” communities in Africa, particularly the “Asians” (read: Indians) in East and Southern Africa and the Lebanese in West Africa.
But there have been far fewer Chinese people in Africa’s history, so the relatively sudden appearance of hundreds (and even thousands, in some countries) of Chinese people in Africa’s towns and cities garners attention.
The pace of this migration is significant. In many African countries, the numbers of Chinese went from zero to several thousand or even tens of thousands in a relatively short period of time beginning in the late 1980s.
Where there were none, now there are many. Chinese people also tend to engage in African society differently than the typical westerner.
A large proportion of Chinese in Africa are labor migrants, working on fixed-term contracts and living in modest, temporary company housing, eating food prepared by Chinese cooks (also imported by these companies), and often isolated from local communities.
The isolation tended to breed rumours: “Chinese eat dogs”, “the Chinese are prisoners”, and “the Chinese are part of a plot to take over Africa”. None of these has any merit.
The workers, brought in by state-owned and private Chinese companies, mostly in construction and extractive industries, are typically on 1-3 year contracts.
Most return to China at the end of their contracts. Some return to Africa for second or third contracts. A small number either stays on (or returns) to Africa to try their hand at business.
The others are primarily independent Chinese migrants who venture to African cities on their own steam.
These migrants have nothing to do with the Chinese state. In fact, most of them complain that they feel quite vulnerable, that the Chinese embassy does not care about them at all. Interviews with several Chinese ambassadors and embassy staff in several African countries over the past decade reveal some truth to their complaints.
Elite Chinese find the independent migrants to be a source of irritation, embarrassment, and extra workload.
Different African countries with different opportunities attract different types of migrants. There are educated and well-travelled professionals, recent graduates, uneducated peasants, and an increasing number of women.
Some are moving to Africa seeking adventure and life experience. Most are moving in order to make money. Quite a few also report that they want to escape the crowds, the competition, the congestion and pollution of their Chinese cities, and the hectic pace at home.
In South Africa and Lesotho, I met many men from Fujian who had previously worked in brick-making and other construction-related fields as well as a former professor of physics who is making more money selling women’s lingerie at one of the Chinese wholesale/distribution centres than in his former, more prestigious profession.
I also met lots of Chinese women. Sun was only 20, pulled out of high school a few years earlier to help her mother run a small shop in a rural town in the Free State after her father was killed in a car crash.
Lily met her Chinese husband on an online dating site/chat room and decided to follow him to another rural town in South Africa where they sell China-made clothing. Angela also runs a shop in another small town in South Africa; she is the proud mother of a University of Cape Town graduate who is now working at a top accounting firm.
She left Shanghai in the early 1990s after a divorce and a desire to re-boot her life. Wu met her black South African (now ex) husband in a post-graduate programme in Europe; they moved back to South Africa together where they married and had two children. Although they are now divorced, Wu is staying in South Africa.
Most “movers” tend to think that their moves are only temporary. Chinese people are no different. The independent migrants typically borrow money in order to cover their airfare and expenses for the first few months of their stay overseas.
Most intend to stay only until they can make some good money, after they’ve repaid their debts. They are sojourners. Think of a sojourner as a seed.
Some sojourners become settlers, planting roots where they are. Others fly away, either to return to China or to move on to other destinations, because they were unable to take root.
Those who stay impact local economies. Unlike westerners in Africa, most Chinese start their own businesses, typically small retail shops or small- to medium-sized factories. They create jobs for locals (or other migrants, as is the case in Johannesburg).
They pay rent (or buy property) and buy food and other goods. Those who are successful make additional investments on the continent.
Those who raise their children in Africa will have a harder time leaving as the children become localised. Some even get involved in politics.
During elections held in South Africa in 2015, there were several ANC posters in Cyrildene, in Chinese!
It is unclear if these posters were initiated by some savvy ANC local councillor to solicit contributions from wealthy Chinese businessmen or vice versa.
Most Chinese migrants, if they can only read Chinese are not likely to be eligible to vote. But there is clearly a deep connection between some of these Chinese migrants and local ANC leaders just as there are strong ties between the Chinese state and African leaders across the continent.
In South Africa, some have referred to the ties between China and South Africa as a “love affair” and many have accused the ANC of kowtowing to the Chinese on matters of both foreign and domestic policy.
How these dynamics play out in the long run depend on many factors.
But for the Chinese migrants, especially those who are on their own, China’s rise and China’s close ties to government leaders can be a double-edged sword.
They remain vulnerable to changing tides of popular opinion, vulnerable to petty crime and corruption, and ready to move again as necessary.
As with all foreigners abroad, their encounters with their embassies are often limited to times of trouble: they’ve either been victims of crime or they’ve gotten into trouble with the law.
The Chinese state, although it wants to maintain its policy of non-interference, is being forced to respond when citizens get into trouble. Recall, for example, the evacuation of Chinese workers from Syria, the deportation of Chinese gold miners from Ghana, or the deportation of dozens of alleged Chinese criminals from Angola.
While those involved in criminal activities make up only a fraction of the Chinese in Africa, they are often the only ones who make headlines.
Chinese people, goods, and construction projects in Africa are increasingly judged by their quality. The Chinese state is forced, therefore, to pay closer attention to all of their “exports”, including its people.
It would do well to take some steps, including improving their relations with Chinese migrants, before more trouble brews.
THE STAR
