海角大神

In the annals of modern colonialism and hegemony, few phenomena are as intriguing as China鈥檚 aggressive movement into Africa, where, according to Howard W. French in China鈥檚 Second Continent, approximately one million Chinese have now migrated. In his important new book, French weaves a rich tapestry of anecdotes, interspersed with numerous interviews with Chinese migrants and Africans alike, offering readers an eminently fair, occasionally humorous and sympathetic, but always engaging account of this unconventional relationship.

French, who previously wrote about Africa for The New York Times and The Washington Post and who is fluent in Chinese, notes several motives for Chinese migration to Africa: wider economic opportunity, improved quality of life, and comparatively less corruption chief among them. Also encouraging this migration is China鈥檚 government under leader Xi Jinping, who understands that Africa presents a great opportunity for growth and new markets. The Chinese government is also savvy about recognizing that Africa has been largely ignored by the West and has been proactive in exploiting the void left by Europe and the United States.

Africa, in French鈥檚 view, has now attained a relative political stability, and with arguably the most arable land in the world and an extraordinary supply of natural resources 鈥� including copper, gold, diamonds and other commodities 鈥� the continent offers Chinese expatriates opportunities for entrepreneurship that wouldn鈥檛 exist in what many call their own 鈥渃orrupt,鈥� 鈥渙vercrowded,鈥� and 鈥渙verly-polluted鈥� homeland.

Significant investment from the Chinese government has helped large, government-owned companies to gain a foothold in this new land; but French is emphatic that much of the shaping of China鈥檚 future in Africa has come from smaller actors who are, in their own way, architects of this budding intercontinental relationship.

Inevitably, there have been culture clashes, with African criticism that Chinese entities are exploiting local industries and natural resources a frequent occurrence. Language barriers and difficult negotiations with local governments have also presented significant challenges to the Asian arrivals. However, French's book is full of examples of resilient Chinese migrants who have successfully pursued opportunities in this new frontier.

One of the more lively individuals French interviews is Hao Shengli, a settler in Mozambique who has acquired a large swath of land for growing tobacco and other crops. His outsized personality is revealed through salty language peppered with obscenities and racial and sexual biases. Having experienced multiple business failures in China, Hao represents the purest essence of the 鈥渃owboy鈥� mentality 鈥� a rugged individualist who doesn鈥檛 suffer fools gladly and who sees the indigenous population chiefly as an obstacle to be overcome 鈥� though he also reserves pointed criticism for the government of his native land, which he considers fundamentally corrupt, as well as his fellow Chinese migrants, whom he doesn鈥檛 necessarily trust.

Zambia is French鈥檚 next stop 鈥� one of the leading copper producing nations of the world. It is something of a foregone conclusion that China, which accounts for 40% of the world鈥檚 copper demand, would have a compelling interest in Zambia鈥檚 future. By French鈥檚 estimate, there are presently over 100,000 Chinese settlers in Zambia, making it one of China鈥檚 largest migrant communities in Africa. And China鈥檚 investment has helped buoy Zambia鈥檚 economy and made possible an African middle class that collectively has numbered over 300 million and is larger than that of India. Even so, Zambia has been the flashpoint for much of the continent鈥檚 political debate and labor unrest about these new Chinese arrivals.

Outside of Lusaka, Zambia鈥檚 capital, French meets with Hu Renzhong, a pig and poultry producer. He owns a 鈥渕ansion farmhouse鈥� and his farm is equipped with 鈥渋mpressively modern鈥� breeding pens and chicken hatcheries. He relocated from China鈥檚 Jiangxi province in the mid-1990s and made a fortune by raising chickens and buying large plots of land. Hu asserts to French, 鈥淭hings had started developing really fast back home and a lot of people tried to tell me I鈥檇 made a mistake. But I鈥檝e never really looked back.鈥�

Yang Bohe runs a copper-processing plant in nearby Ndola. Like Hao Shengli, he had suffered the repressions of China鈥檚 Cultural Revolution and was also seeking a fresh start in a new land. Yang is a rarity among the Chinese migrants in that he speaks English, and wistfully tells how he was befriended by a teacher in Chengdu who, at considerable risk to himself, gave Yang three pages of a Bible each day to memorize before he burned them.

Yang eventually financed and built a copper smelter in Ndola, which was fantastically successful; but the air was routinely filled with particulates, and that only exacerbated a common Zambian complaint about the Chinese 鈥� they won鈥檛 hire local labor for many jobs and segregate themselves from the indigenous population. Repeating a common prejudice, Yang asserts 鈥淭hey are rich in land. And Zambians have good bodies. The problem is they cannot work hard.鈥� But French is equally surprised when he asks Yang about other Chinese in Ndola. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 talk to the other Chinese here," he tells French. "I mind my own business.鈥�

Chinese industrial and community projects in Lusaka, including a 159-bed hospital and a new 45,000 seat stadium, have dulled local antagonisms, but bubbling just under the surface is heated resentment by Zambians over the low pay, 13-hour workdays, and hazardous working conditions that they believe have been responsible for the deaths of numerous laborers. The Chinese themselves practice a certain degree of workplace safety; but often, the local laborers are afforded no protection from chemicals or the toxic air a plant emits. And to add insult to injury, Chinese human rights abuses at Zambia鈥檚 Collum and Chambisi mines in the first decade of the millennium were practically ignored by Zambian President Rupiah Banda鈥檚 government, which appeared to have sold out to China鈥檚 considerable economic power. It鈥檚 a constantly recurring theme in French鈥檚 book.

In Senegal, one of Africa鈥檚 most vibrant merchant cultures, Chinese shops have become all but commonplace, which, as in Zambia, has resulted in a swift backlash from the local population that considers this a 鈥渃olonization鈥� of their retail sector. French next encounters Li Jicai, a highly successful import-export business owner in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. Seeking to break into a trade that was previously populated by Lebanese, Li says he found he had to thoroughly research the region鈥檚 history. He tells French, 鈥淲hen I first came, I sensed that trade was very poorly developed. I sold clothes. I sold shoes. I sold merchandise. Basically, I sold whatever I could. For me, understanding Africa became a matter of understanding economics. It became my teacher.鈥� Taking note of Li鈥檚 success, others soon after made the exodus from Henan to Dakar.

In Dakar鈥檚 avenue of La Centenaire, Chinese merchants man stalls alongside those of the wary Senegalese. French chats up one of the Henan migrants, Liu, who is quick to voice his displeasure with the locals. 鈥淗ow will they develop with the kind of education they have here? Look at China. We are putting people into space. We are developing our technologies. We are inventing things and competing with the rich countries. But these people, they are impossible to teach.鈥� They just don鈥檛 learn.鈥� But this is also a harsh economic environment for the Chinese, many of whom are forced to return home after financial failure. Liu complains of crime in Dakar, suggesting that Chinese are primary targets. Also, some vulnerable Chinese women like Chen, who migrated to Senegal largely out of desperation, have been subjected to sexual trafficking.

On a flight to Liberia, French meets a spirited young woman from Guangdong province named Jin Hui. This woman is 鈥渟eized ... with her own cultural observations about [Liberia], a litany of condescending views involving sloth and filth and laziness on the part of its inhabitants.鈥� For French, countries like Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, which were enmeshed in the so-called 鈥渄irty wars鈥� of the 1990s and 2000s, illustrate the divergent paths Africa may follow in the future, and the significant role China could play there. African countries with stable democracies will use their relationship with China to gain investment and thrive economically on the robust Chinese demand for their exports. But on the other hand, countries with a tradition of dictatorship and internal strife are more likely to sell their mineral riches to China and fail to seize the opportunity to profit beyond the extraction of those riches. In other words, those who have diversified their economies will succeed; those who haven鈥檛 will fail.

French quotes the writer Graham Greene, whose description of Liberia鈥檚 unique brand of 鈥渟eediness鈥� has since, in French鈥檚 estimation, given way to wretchedness. Liberia was a 19th-century creation of the US, and is, in French鈥檚 mind, 鈥渢he closest thing America had ever had to an African colony.鈥� He suggests that even with the remarkable industriousness, energy, and enterprise of Chinese migrants, nothing in the way of progress for Liberia seems possible.

One of French鈥檚 contacts in Monrovia, a hotel owner named Li Jiong, picks up French in his late-model Mercedes Benz and immediately starts in on politics. 鈥淭he Americans give a lot of money to this country, but it just gets wasted. It never reaches the people. China has learned from that.鈥� He continues, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 give away money. We build things. That way, the people can see impact.鈥� Returning to Li鈥檚 hotel, French finds he doesn鈥檛 have a towel in his room. Li, after having a colleague bring him one, asserts, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 usually give them out because most Chinese bring their own. They wouldn鈥檛 want to use one that a black person might have used.鈥�

Li then waxes on about his hotel and his trade in iroko trees, as well as his nuli, or self-application, and his destiny, or yuan fen, to get rich in Africa: 鈥淚 have a yuan fen because I work hard. That鈥檚 why I have a house like this and a car and other businesses. Without hard work, destiny is meaningless.鈥� He then goes on about the Liberians, 鈥淭he people in charge have no idea what they鈥檙e doing. How else could you have 80 percent unemployment? How else could they be unable to feed themselves well?鈥� And overhearing French鈥檚 angry phone call with Kenya Airways about his lost luggage, Li opines, 鈥淏lack people are not good at getting things done.鈥� Their customs were formed back when there was no telephone and no highway. It鈥檚 very easy for them to put anything that鈥檚 not immediate out of mind.鈥� This plays into French鈥檚 assessment of the Chinese he meets in Liberia: 鈥淭here were notes of ignorance about Africans and their circumstances, and palpable na褩vet茅. There was also a kind of optimism and self-belief that was striking, if perhaps equally na茂ve.鈥�

Reinforcing some of the stereotypical assessments by the Chinese of the Liberians was Dr. Dai, who manages a Chinese health clinic outside of Monrovia. He says he doesn鈥檛 hire Liberians because they are 鈥渄irty and lazy and prone to stealing.鈥� He adds, 鈥淭he patients don鈥檛 like them. I鈥檝e had white people 鈥� a German diplomat, for example 鈥� tell me directly: 鈥業 trust your work and your hygiene, but if there were blacks here I couldn鈥檛 use your clinic.鈥� This is not something I can do anything about. I can鈥檛 change the thinking of white people.鈥� French thinks to himself, 鈥淭his was a reasonably clever, if unconvincing, formulation, a bid to launder his image a bit by projecting his prejudices upon others.鈥�

While visiting Conakry, Guinea, French encounters electricity problems, traffic jams and throngs of military police, and these factors, among others, cause him to compare the $5-billion contract China has offered Guinea (infrastructure improvements in exchange for China鈥檚 unfettered access to iron ore, bauxite and oil exploration rights) with the $6 billion offered for a 20-year access to Congo鈥檚 mineral reserves 鈥� both former dictatorships that represented the downward path French had previously mentioned.

Amadou Dano Barry, French鈥檚 Guinea companion and an academic at the University of Conakry, explains the dynamic of China in the country: 鈥淭hese things tend to work for the Chinese in Africa. That鈥檚 because Africans have not mastered management. Our leaders are lazy and their attitude is that the detailed stuff is too complicated.鈥� Assessing the Chinese themselves, Barry adds, 鈥淭he Chinese come and they want your iron, your bauxite, your petroleum. In return, they鈥檒l deliver you turnkey projects, where they supply the materials, the technology and the labor, with salaries that are mostly not paid in the country and do not contribute to the economy.鈥� China has long financed such projects in places like the Congo and Guinea without regard to their internal affairs, and this has earned the Chinese considerable criticism in much of the rest of the world.

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, civil war decimated the country; but as soon as the Nigerians had driven rebels from the city, Chinese businessmen come into Freetown and successfully negotiated the acquisition of the Bintumani, the grand hotel that had been badly damaged and looted in the conflict. Before long, they completely restored the hotel, and this was the beginning of Freetown鈥檚 resurgence. Chinese road-building companies then came in and won contracts away from the Italian and Senegalese companies that had been doing the work before.

This activity, as French notes, presages a well-hewn Chinese strategy: 鈥渢o take control of and revive a collapsed mining industry that sat on immense reserves of iron, rutile, titanium and many other industrial metals.鈥� Chinese companies China Railways Materials and later the Shandong Iron and Steel group have lately partnered with Romanian industrialist Frank Timis, to gain 25,000 square kilometers of land that contains iron deposits estimated at one billion tons.

While in Freetown, French met with Joseph Rahall, head of an NGO (non-governmental organization) called Green Scenery, that was engaged in building Sierra Leone鈥檚 civil society. Rahall observes, 鈥淭he Chinese work in a very peculiar manner. They prefer to deal directly with the president and to make a spectacular gesture, and that is that. They don鈥檛 go for any public discussion, and they won鈥檛 give importance to many international norms, or to civil society, or to principles like democracy. That is the backdrop to some of their big deals in the country 鈥� not just iron, but also for oil and timber.鈥� He continues that where the West wags its finger at you, calling your corrupt, the Chinese are there. This was the so-called 鈥淐hinese alternative鈥�; in Rahall鈥檚 opinion, you are 鈥渟tuck between the devil [the West] and the deep blue sea.鈥� This, together with Sierra Leone鈥檚 weakness in dealing with domestic corruption, makes for particularly attractive economic opportunities, such as the Timis deal, for China.

Chinese economic incursions into Mali and Ghana follow a similar pattern. Faliry Boly, a farmer and 鈥減recocious鈥� political mind in Bamako, Mali, has witnessed and studied the Chinese involvement in his country since the fall of the country鈥檚 long socialist dictatorship and the establishment of one of the first democratic governments in the region. He recalls a meeting with a representative of the French Communist party in the late 1990s: 鈥淗e said the Chinese are coming and they are very enterprising, so you must be careful. I [Boly] told him that the Chinese were predators in the same way that the French were. The only difference is that the Chinese theft is the theft of an office clerk. A long time will go by before you understand what has befallen you.鈥�

And speaking to French, Boly reinforces that image of the Chinese: 鈥淐hina has a means of advancing which is different from that of the West. They are like a boa: it observes its prey quietly, taking its time. In the same way, the Chinese are waiting for a long-term return. They鈥檙e waiting for a maximal result.鈥�

Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence, from Britain, in 1957. It is country rich in natural resources, including gold, cocoa and oil, and has a relatively stable political system. China proposed 鈥渋n-kind鈥� financing an overhaul of Ghana鈥檚 infrastructure for a share of their oil profits. It is the kind of deal, French asserts, that increases the likelihood of Ghana being undercompensated for their oil or other reserves over the long term due to China鈥檚 locking in discounts against price increases.

As French was meeting with Edward Brown of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), Ghana鈥檚 president John Atta Mills returned from Beijing, having concluded 鈥渁 memorandum of understanding鈥� for a $13 billion Chinese loan package that he said would 鈥渢ransform our country鈥檚 economy and the lives of the people of Ghana.鈥� China鈥檚 investment in Ghana is wide-ranging, including transmission pipelines bringing natural gas from newly exploited offshore fields in the west of the country, hydroelectric dams and water supply and rural electrification projects. There is to be an aluminum refinery capable of producing two million tons of the metal per year, and new roads would be rehabilitated and built.

But conversely, while interviewing Ghana鈥檚 King Wuo, French learns of a $622 million loan China made to Ghana to relocate three Ghanaian villages prior to the creation of the Akosombo Dam. The result, French concludes, 鈥渃onformed to a general pattern in Africa where most of the money China lends ends up in the pockets of Chinese contractors and suppliers.鈥� In short, host countries like Ghana see very little tangible benefit from such 鈥渂eneficence.鈥�

Next, French interviews Kwadwo Tutu, a senior economist at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a Ghanaian think tank, who sums up his appraisal of outsiders鈥� (including China鈥檚) involvements in Ghana: 鈥淚f we continue on this way, it is only a matter of time before the new oil discoveries that people are celebrating will be finished, and our children will not have benefited.鈥� French also observes that many Ghanaians have complained liberally that the Chinese had engaged in illegal mining, cutting down forests, and despoiling the land with mercury to produce their gold. They also complain about shoddy Chinese products, and the Chinese propensity for bribery and corruption.

China鈥檚 biggest construction project in Ghana is the Bui Dam. The Chinese company overseeing its construction, Sinohydro, follows a well-rehearsed script honed in similar, previous dealings throughout Africa, thoroughly lacking in transparency about its dealings.聽 Though it is presently engaged in over 70 dam projects throughout Africa, Sinohydro provides scant public information and keeps the media at arm鈥檚 length. Whereas in Africa there is a demand by opposition parties and civic groups that their governments disclose details of such projects, it is routinely not the case with Chinese initiatives.

In his travels to Tanzania, Mali, Namibia, Mozambique, wherever, French鈥檚 anecdotes seemed to follow a similar template. The players might change, but the narrative is repetitive. In his meeting with the Chinese commercial attach茅 in Mozambique, French is told that the country鈥檚 obstacle to feeding itself is 鈥渃ultural.鈥� The representative adds, 鈥淐hinese people can really chi ku [eat bitter].鈥� In Chinese, we say that if you are hungry or cold you have to do something about it.鈥� Chinese people are in a hurry to work, to earn money, to get rich. If they are farmers, they make every day count. Here, it鈥檚 not the same. Africans like to dance. That鈥檚 their specialty. They may be poor, but they are happy.鈥� In thinking to himself how many times he has heard this tired refrain in his travels, French muses, 鈥淐hina had not so much broken from the paternalism of the West that it so often decried, as replaced it with one of their own.鈥� The Chinese have not thought of the Africans as equals, but rather as their 鈥� children, capable of only baby steps to be brought along with sugary inducements and infantilizing speech.鈥�

In the book's epilogue, French ponders how this Chinese dynamic in Africa resembles traditional interpretations of imperialism. He determines that 鈥淐hina, for all its denials of any global ambition that could be likened to hegemony, is clearly competing with someone and for something 鈥� global preeminence. The outright size of many of China鈥檚 projects in Africa have served to remind the world of China鈥檚 reach, power, generosity and solicitude.鈥� Also, as was once true of Western powers in Africa, China鈥檚 focus on infrastructure in Africa is important to each country鈥檚 development, but also makes it possible for China to more easily transport resources out of those countries. For example, French notes, 鈥渢he Portuguese had understood the potential of a diaspora in a faraway land to build up favorable trading networks, to extend political influence, and even to reduce problems back home, by giving marginal elements of society a shot at wealth and redemption.鈥�

"China鈥檚 Second Continent" is a searing, trenchant, and entertaining study of how China, in both an individual and collective sense, is shrewdly and opportunistically maximizing its relationships with African nations in an effort to extend its economic influence across the world. The infrastructure projects China underwrites in these African nations, though they may be of temporary benefit to the host countries, provide China with untold riches in the form of raw materials. They also smooth the path to a hegemony on that continent that the Chinese government 鈥� despite its denials 鈥� has embraced.聽 聽

Chris Hartman is a Monitor contributor.