The story of China in Africa is not just one of lumbering and faceless state-owned enterprises mechanically dispensing stadiums according to blueprints wired from Beijing. In China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa, Howard French describes his travels through fifteen countries to find China’s human presence. Most of the Chinese he meets are not officials or contract workers, but individuals who, for their own reasons, have sought opportunity where the West sees little. Still, their endeavors remain tangled with those of their government. French also talks with representatives of the African governments and publics which, he stresses, will play active and decisive roles in shaping the outcomes of engagement with China. He writes:
Africa, I believe, is embarking upon an era of sharp divergences in which China will play a huge role in specific national outcomes—for better and for worse, perhaps even dramatically, depending on the country. Places endowed with stable governments, with elites that are accountable and responsive to the needs of their fellow citizens, and with relatively healthy institutions, will put themselves in a position to thrive on the strength of robust Chinese demand for their exports and fast-growing investment from China and from a range of other emerging economic powers, including Brazil, Turkey, India, and Vietnam. Inevitably, most of these African countries will be democracies. Other nations, whether venal dictatorships, states rendered dysfunctional by war, and even some fragile democracies—places where institutions remain too weak or corrupted—will sell off their mineral resources to China and other bidders, and squander what is in effect a one-time chance to convert underground riches into aboveground wealth by investing in their own citizens and creating new kinds of economic activity beyond today’s simple extraction.
The book fizzes with relevance beyond its direct subject matter, offering insight into China’s other foreign ventures and unfamiliar perspectives on its domestic politics and society.
Now an associate professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, French covered both China and Africa as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. His previous books are A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa and Disappearing Shanghai, a collection of his documentary photography, presented alongside poetry by Qiu Xiaolong. He kindly agreed to discuss China’s Second Continent with CDT by email.
China Digital Times: What are the most common or serious pitfalls in thinking about Africa and China’s presence there, for those of us without a strong focus on or familiarity with the former?
Howard French: I would emphasize two things. The first [misconception] is that everything, or even most of what is happening in Africa with regard to China is directly driven in some centrally planned way by the Chinese state. Beijing has clearly made a priority of extending its influence on the continent, but a major theme of my book is that the large-scale migration of private Chinese citizens has become an important wild card in relations between China and Africa, one that defies real control or planning. For that reason, the tentative working title of the book was originally “Haphazard Empire.”