Kineserna i Afrika

Inte sällan stöter jag på artiklar som ger helt nya, oväntade perspektiv på något förhållande som jag haft en vag kunskap om. Att många kinesiska företag är verksamma i Afrika har det skrivits en del om. Men härom dagen hittade jag en recension i New York Times om en ny bok om kineserna i Afrika som tecknade för mig helt nya perspektiv.

Boken är CHINA’S SECOND CONTINENT – How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa av Howard W. French och här några intressanta detaljer från recensionen:

 In Mozambique he spends time with Hao Shengli, a brash agricultural entrepreneur from Henan province whom he calls the Chinese version of the “ugly American.” French, a former New York Times foreign chief in Africa and China, speaks Chinese, pleasantly surprising his subjects with his fluency, and they often allowed him into their homes, businesses and even wedding celebrations. Hao, for instance, is startlingly blunt. The skin of the Mozambicans was so “black” that it made him uncomfortable at first. He tells French: “I didn’t think they were so clever, not so intelligent, and I was looking for an opportunity based on my own capabilities. Can you imagine if I had gone to America or Germany first? The people in those . . . places are too smart.” He went on, “So we had to find backward countries, poor countries that we can lead, places where we can do business, where we can manage things successfully.”

Still, Hao is not a stand-in for his countrymen across the continent; his story is unique. He distrusts other Chinese businessmen in Mozambique, and so he camped out alone in the countryside, where he bought a swath of land from a local government (angering native residents) to grow lucrative crops, and schemed to hold on to his budding wealth. Hao’s grand plan is to marry off his sons to local women and then put his land in the women’s names for safekeeping from government seizure, creating a miniature Chinese-Mozambican economic dynasty. He moved his two sons from China, and the older one has acquired a live-in girlfriend who cooks and cleans for the men. Hao is one of a number of Chinese farmers targeting empty expanses on the continent; Africa may hold up to 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Like several of the book’s subjects, Hao subscribes to the idea of chi ku, a Cultural Revolution-era expression that translates to “eat bitter,” or endure hardship. From trailers in the deserts of Mali to outposts on the Namibia-Angola border, Africa’s Chinese frontiersmen and women are setting up homes. They are unafraid of loneliness, boredom, power blackouts and other inconveniences as they try to make their fortunes — with an encouraging push from the Chinese government, which is happy to help with financing. All of those hardships are better, they say, than the rigidity, stiff competition and corruption back home.

French concludes that Chinese migration to the continent falls within a wider tradition of foreign powers establishing spheres of economic influence in Africa, and he doesn’t doubt that China’s political demands on Africa will grow. This is probably true. But if Africa fails to capitalize on its wealth to the benefit of future generations, it won’t be entirely China’s fault.