“One Chinese Is a Dragon, Three Chinese Are a Worm”: An Investigation into the New Chinese Migrants in Africa

As a new economic pole in a globalized world, Africa has attracted a significant number of Chinese migrants from mainland China for countless opportunities since the late 1980s. Given their huge numbers (an estimated one million) and economic influence, the Chinese community in Africa has thus come to symbolize one significant aspect of “China’s Rise” on the international stage in recent years. Despite this crucial status, this community is still significantly understudied. Current research on this community tends to adopt either a realpolitik perspective to discuss China’s emergence in relation to other great powers (thus taking away agency from this community) or an ethnographical approach that primarily examines this community’s living conditions in various African countries. This paper provides an alternative perspective on the Chinese in Africa. First, it analyzes, at both micro and macro levels, the role that these Chinese migrants have played in bilateral relations between China and African countries. Second, it examines how Chinese migrants in Africa have behaved in different socio-political contexts by adapting to local environments politically, economically, and culturally, and by taking advantage of various opportunities made available by their homeland, China. My research utilizes South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Ghana as case studies to show how Chinese migrants from mainland China have organized themselves, to analyze the transformative characteristics of these organizations, to examine the contributions of these Chinese towards China’s bilateral relations with African countries, and to study how these Chinese migrants have attempted to benefit from such diplomatic efforts.