A million Chinese migrants in Africa

It is hard to keep track of everything. Every now and then I turn around and something that was on the periphery of my awareness startlingly appears front and center. I recently finished reading Henning Mankell's The Man From Beijing. Mankell is perhaps best known for his series of mysteries based on the character Inspector Kurt Wallander. I enjoyed the series and have a soft spot for Scandinavian noir having lived in Sweden in the 1970s and where I first became acquainted with the progenitors of the genre, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.

The Man From Beijing was my first excursion into Mankell's non-Wallander works and I was pleasantly surprised. The story begins with a massacre in a small, remote Swedish village and the primary protagonist is a Swedish woman. However, there is a secondary story which actually drives all the action. That story centers in China and there is much interesting detailed conjecture about the actions and dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party as it attempts to ride the wild horse of a developing market-based economy and in particular having to deliver continuing dramatic growth necessary to improve the lives of the 600 million still living the ancient life of the peasant, while loosening up constraints in the cities where the market-based denizens are demanding greater liberties (especially critical to sustain growth) AND still maintaining Party control.

The book was written in 2006 and I thought Mankell was especially good at his inferences of what might be happening behind closed Party doors. However, one of the themes suggested that the Party was launching an effort to relocate some 5-10 million or more Chinese rural peasants into the undeveloped hinterlands of Africa. Such a move being justified on three grounds 1) It would remove some pressure to change in China, 2) It would create facts on the ground that ensured China of having great influence on the world stage, and 3) It would be beneficial to African countries.

I thought this to be the most speculative portion of the book and assumed it was largely a product of Mankell's history in Mozambique (he spends half of each year there). I also thought it to be the most fictional and least plausible. A provocative stretch but not much more.

But today I read a review by Alexis Okeowo of The Settlers:‘China’s Second Continent,’ by Howard W. French. Seems like Mankell's speculation was not nearly as far fetched as I imagined.

In his extraordinary new book “China’s Second Continent,” Howard W. French delves into the lives of some of the one million-plus Chinese migrants he says are now building careers in Africa. For all the debate about China’s intentions (imperialist or not?) and business practices (corrupt or not?) on the continent, the key piece of the discussion, French argues, has been ignored: the actual lives of those Chinese who have uprooted themselves to settle and work in Africa. Even as China has become the world’s fastest-growing large economy, 10 of the 20 fastest-growing economies between 2013 and 2017 are projected to be in Africa. As French writes, “Bit by bit, these facts have become closely intertwined.” The recent Chinese immigrants are the glue holding them together. And the stories French tells are fascinating.

A million migrants already! Hmm.

I have lived in Africa, have long been interested in its history and have read widely on it, and keep track of emerging stories in such publications as The New York Times and The Economist. I have been well aware of China's various commercial ventures on the continent and its strategic interest over the past decade. But somehow the fact that that has already amounted to 1 million migrants had escaped me.