Howard French’s China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa is a bit cliche. Rather than a scholarly book it’s more an observational travelogue, and it suffers somewhat from the fact that it is focused on Chinese who live in Africa, but are never of it. Chinese are Chinese, and those who migrate to Africa have more commonalities than most. So French’s attempts to spin out distinct experiences was a bit stretched. Basically, the same thing is happening over and over across the African continent.
When I say this that it is cliche, I’m alluding to the fact that for many Chinese presence in Africa is rather well known. But the reality is not everyone knows about it. So I was happy to see The New York Times put this issue front and center, Is China the World’s New Colonial Power?
There are twists which are important to remember. First, China’s working age population has been declining since 2012. This is going to put a crimp in any “imperial” ambitions. Second, this Chinese “empire” is not going to be an explicitly political one, but rather one of influence, control, and tough soft power.
That being said, we should’t underestimate the will and need of the Chinese to have their “time in the sun.” Fifteen years ago Ross Terrill wrote The New Chinese Empire. In it be observed that for much of Chinese history there has long been a division between a moralistic/ideological camp and a more nationalist realpolitik element. He traces this division back to antiquity, with Confucianism and Legalism as the prototypes (I’m not sure I believe this). But Terrill observed that Deng Xiaoping and the leaders who he cultivated and promoted to succeed him were generally much more nakedly nationalistic than Mao ever was.
Just something to keep in mind as we look to the future….
Semantic arguments are incredibly boring and for most part pointless but I do have to take a bit of issue with the usage of the term “colonialism” regarding China. No matter how you look at it, Chinese actions in Africa does not compare with Western colonialism in the 19th and 20th century. Using commercial power to put (very heavy) influence on other nations is not quite the same of establishing colonies by force of arms. I do not think this is a trivial point to make. There are heavy biases against China in the American press, had been for the past two decades. So I do not think it is an innocent “mistake” that the press is trying to put an equivalence between China in Africa and Western colonialism. When people are talking about a “new form of colonialism” in Africa, it seems to me to be an attempt to draw some equivalence between Chinese foreign policy and Western colonialism despite the two obviously being different. Personally I think it cheapens the word colonialism. Even if the press then explains that the “new form of colonialism” is different from the “old form of colonialism”, people will read the headline and instantly come to the conclusion of complete exploitation.
For what it’s worth, China in Africa is obviously not a wholly benign prospect for Africans since China is hyper-rational regarding foreign interests and the Chinese government probably does not rank African wellbeing very high in priorities. And Chinese projects in Africa are obviously mostly extractive. But China also have a large commercial influence on the Australian economy, and Chinese imports from Australia are also mostly raw materials. No one in their right minds would think China is colonizing Australia. As long as China haven’t started creating extrajudicial courts with extraterritorial laws and cities for all Chinese in Africa protected by a standing Chinese military and gunboat diplomacy, I don’t exactly see why Chinese policy should be called a “new form of colonialism”. I don’t think colonialism should be defined however people like it to be defined simply by adding “a new form” in front.
i think i agree with you.
You make excellent point.
On the other hand, one might argue that European colonialism and legacy had already so weakened most of Africa, that all that’s now needed for China to continue to keep Africa prostrate is to continue pushing down on Africa’s financialized chickens ‘n’ dirt ‘economy’ with a lightweight feather of contractual obligation.
“the press is trying to put an equivalence between China in Africa and Western colonialism”
Don’t know about the US press, but in Europe’s left wing media outlets you often see talk of modern colonialism. & it’s originally not about Chinese exploitation of Africa, but Western business “making profits on the backs of poor Africans”. I think (can’t open NYT, being in the PRC) it is used in that sense here. Even left-leaning outlets like the NYT are probably well aware that this has not much in common with colonialism in the original meaning. Since Chinese companies often bring their own workers from China, they are probably even more “exploitative” than their Western counterparts. So, if they are talking about this modern colonialism the equivalence is there, even though it’s not actually colonialism.