Just read your piece re. the French article (which I have to read still).

I had a few thoughts on what you wrote:

1. I think you might be a bit guilty of simplifying the European colonial involvement in Africa

a. European influence in Africa wasn’t simply a get-in, get-out affair. A large number of people of British extraction remain in South Africa, for instance, and lesser numbers in Zimbabwe (some of whom are firmly embedded, despite the odds against them these part 10 years) and Kenya.

b. Portugal imported many people into Mozambique and Angola, in a similar fashion to the way the Chinese are doing now–these people were typically low on the economic scale, who set up businesses, and integrated a fair bit with local people.

c. Bottom-line: There are perhaps more parallels to be drawn between China’s current rush into Africa and the earlier European scramble for Africa then your piece might suggest.

2. “…the Chinese are NOT leaving.” Depends on what you mean by leaving. It is entirely possible that official Chinese government involvement might “leave” at some point in the future, particularly if/as a backlash winds up. But your larger point, that there will be many Chinese people who have moved and set up shop in Africa who will not leave, is probably accurate. But, see my first set of points–by that metric, the Europeans haven’t really left yet either. Many of them have, but there is still a fair number of white Africans, and numerous long-term expats to be found (and plenty of businesses).

The number of Chinese migrants will of course be far larger, but all populations are larger now then they were 100-200 years ago.

Sincerely,

Mazibuko

ERIC OLANDER RESPONSE:

Dear Mazibuko,

Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback. While it is absolutely possible that I may be oversimplifying the European involvement, there are a couple of fundamental differences between the Chinese and the European adventures in Africa that are worthy of note.

First and foremost, it’s a question of scale. When the Europeans came to Africa they were incapable of the logistics that the Chinese have undertaken. The speed with which the Chinese have moved in thousands and thousands of tons of industrial equipment to countries across Africa is absolutely mind blowing. They have imported cranes, trucks, raw materials and essentially everything they need to build out the infrastructure projects they’re working on in dozens of countries. It is truly mind blowing to see in a single construction site dozens of Chinese constructions trucks lined up still with their regional license plates from back home in China on them. The speed, scale and depth of their logistics operation to get all of that material over there is incomparable to what the Europeans could have ever dreamed of during the their colonial efforts.

As a follow up to that logistics effort, the fact that the Chinese have brought in so much industrial equipment and are working at a speed and scale that is essentially unprecedented is also what makes their move across Africa that terrifying. They are extracting resources from the continent at a speed which the Europeans could only have dreamed of. The reports of industrial scale clear cutting of protected rain forests in the DRC, Congo and Zimbabwe is nothing short of frightening. The Chinese largely have no regard for environmental protection or labor rights so they are moving at a speed which we have just never seen before. Again, the Europeans were limited by their crude technological and logistical operations that the Chinese are largely unencumbered by.

Finally, when it comes to the question of people, there is also a fundamental difference that is worthy of note. While the Portugese and Dutch brought over farmers and other working class migrants from their home countries, once again we are dealing with a scale and speed of migration that was just not possible in that era. The fact that it took centuries for the French, for example, to build up their population to somewhere around a million expats and the Chinese have reached that number in just a couple of decades illustrates the point. Another point of distinction is that the Europeans settled in their own immigrant clusters (be it the farms in Zimbabwe or the Afrikaner communities in SA) whereas the Chinese differ again in that they are settling directly into African communities rather than setting up so-called “Chinatowns.” I believe this is like injecting a drug directly in the blood stream where the impact is far more immediate — so by setting up small businesses and communities in neighborhoods across the continent, the Chinese will have a far more dramatic impact, more quickly than the Europeans who often segregated themselves from Africans.

I love these kinds of exchanges so I’d be very interested to hear what you think? Also, if it’s OK with you (and I can delete your name) would it be OK if I copied and pasted our discussion here onto the China Talking Points website?

Thanks again for reading my post. It’s great fun!

Cheers,

Eric