Chinese Migration and China's Foreign Policy in Africa

Abstract

Since the end of the 1990s, Africa has seen an increasing number of migrants of Chinese origin. It is possible to differentiate between three types of Chinese migration: a temporary labor migration flow linked to public building works and infrastructure projects undertaken by big Chinese enterprises; an entrepreneurial migration flow made up of merchants native to mainland China some of whom coming from the different diaspora communities; a proletarian transit migration flow consisting of people trying to sell their labor in western countries while waiting in Africa for opportunities to enter those countries. Over the same period, the foreign relations between China and Africa have expanded. There are roughly three elements in Chinese policy toward the continent: to gain access to natural resources such as oil and minerals, to widen China's export market and to strengthen China's diplomatic support for different international organizations. The objectives are to ensure the economic growth of the PRC and widen its political influence. This article aims to put in perspective the recent developments in Chinese migration and the orientations of China's foreign policy in Africa, and to re-address the question of relations between China and the Chinese overseas.

Chinese Migrants in Africa as New Agents of Development? An Analytical Framework

“…In 2001, the Ohio University database estimated the total number of Chinese in Africa as 137 000, the same figure that Taiwan's government provided for that year. Mung (2008) estimates the current number of Chinese to be between 270 000 and 510 000, whereas the Xinhua press agency recently estimated that there may be as many as 750 000 Chinese working or living for extended periods in Africa (French and Polgreen, 2007), although it is not clear how this figure was arrived at. Below the continental level, the most notable growth is found in those countries with significant oil resources, notably Nigeria and Sudan.…”

“…Moreover, the more speculative estimates may overinflate numbers so as to make the Chinese 'threat' appear greater than it is. Besides, the weaknesses in official data collection is the whole question of undocumented migrants that purposefully evade state surveillance (Mung, 2008), which would lead to an underestimation of overall numbers.…”

“…Although migration in general has largely been shaped by the demands of the capitalist world economy, such structural analyses can conceal important ways in which capitalism works through the exploitation of difference, particularly race and gender (Silvey, 2004). So, although Mung (2008) is right to see parallels between late nineteenth century Chinese contract labour migration to Africa organised by the colonial empires and contemporary labour recruitment, there are clearly important differences in terms of the decentralised coordination of recent migration, the nature of the Chinese and African states then and now and the ideologies of development that underpin such movements (Nyiri, 2006). In turn, this shapes the second issue in which we must be much sharper around the social and geographical characteristics of migrants, especially differences within the Overseas Chinese (Xiang, 2005).…”

“…In addition to these, state-backed migrants are petty entrepreneurs who largely operate in trade, services and in light manufacturing, establishing themselves in places, such as Morocco, Ghana (Colombant 2006), Angola (Corkin, 2008a), Cameroon, Namibia and Cape Verde (Haugen and Carling, 2005;Mung, 2008). Ho (2008) rightly argues that these entrepreneurs operate independently of Chinese state agendas even though the misguided western notion of 'China Inc.' suggests the contrary.…”

“…Mung (2008) asserts that these migrants often use African states as 'soft' locations where they can break their journeys on an ultimate quest to enter North America or Western Europe. Here, they gather funds and the documentation (legal or otherwise) for the next stage of their journey.…”