Great African Reads discussion

Our 3rd Quarterly Nonfiction read of the year is China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa by Howard W. French. Who's reading along?

Please use this space to post your thoughts and reflections on the book, and link us to any additional interesting resources on the topic!

This will be a September read for me.

I've got the book from the library and plan to start soon!

As the Chinese are not only invading Africa but also Europe via the so called new silk road and my home town being one of the stops which is really creepy, this should be a must read for me...

Orgeluse wrote: "As the Chinese are not only invading Africa but also Europe via the so called new silk road and my home town being one of the stops which is really creepy, this should be a must read for me..."

Invading??? After all that Western Europe has invaded — truly invaded — the rest of the world, welcoming immigrants and refugees seems the least that should be done. I say this as someone of European descent (and at least one third German) born in the United States. I am ashamed of how the U.S. has treated Chinese immigrants. It is not only wrong but absurdity ironic that this country should view immigrants from anywhere as “invaders” but I digress…

Now the situation in Africa may be entirely different in relation to immigration and I would be quite interested in learning more about that but looking specifically at the Chinese strikes me as racist. Am I wrong?

Erin wrote: "Orgeluse wrote: "As the Chinese are not only invading Africa but also Europe via the so called new silk road and my home town being one of the stops which is really creepy, this should be a must re..."

Erin, I was not referring to Chinese refugees / immigrants / migrants and I did not write about Chinese migrant workers "invading" Europe.
I was referring to the Government of China's practice of gaining economic/political influence in / over certain countries around the world by making countries financially dependent on them (as is the case at the moment with Montenegro) which I consider being dangerous as this also means that the Government of China might be able to exert its power also politically in these countries. Given that the Chinese government has been establishing a surveillance state over the last two decades this is simply creepy!
I think that the book that we will be reading here not only focusses on the despicable ill-treatment of Chinese migrant workers but also on the above mentioned aspect of Chinese politics and this is what I was referring to.
I hope I made myself clear.

Orgeluse wrote: "Erin wrote: "Orgeluse wrote: "As the Chinese are not only invading Africa but also Europe via the so called new silk road and my home town being one of the stops which is really creepy, this should..."

In that case I apologize. It looks like the book is about Chinese migrants in Africa so I assumed you were talking about the same thing. Then too as I mentioned, such attitudes are all too prevalent in the U.S. so that may have predisposed me to a wrong interpretation.

I wonder about Chinese involvement in Africa in relation to ongoing U.S. and European involvement as well as Indian and others, whether they are all exploitive or whether Africans could use such competing interests to their advantage. I fear the former so long as the power is not with the people, but all this is something I know far too little about. I should read this book and perhaps others such as The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth or better yet, African perspectives on this foreign involvement.

Erin wrote: "Orgeluse wrote: "Erin wrote: "Orgeluse wrote: "As the Chinese are not only invading Africa but also Europe via the so called new silk road and my home town being one of the stops which is really cr..."

From what I have read about the book so far it covers both aspects and also includes different facets of the African perspective. The more I think about it the more I am looking forward to joining the discussion of the book here in this group!

Erin wrote: "I wonder about Chinese involvement in Africa in relation to ongoing U.S. and European involvement as well as Indian and others, whether they are all exploitive or whether Africans could use such competing interests to their advantage. I fear the former so long as the power is not with the people, but all this is something I know far too little about. I should read this book and perhaps others such as The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth or better yet, African perspectives on this foreign involvement."

Interesting discussion you have going here! I hope the book will provide insights on at least part of these questions.

Thanks for the suggested book, Erin!

Africa indeed still is the theater of geopolitical power play, as shown by the recent Mali coup, triggered by a government reshuffle supported by the French in order to diminish Russian and Chinese influence...

In our newspapers today which links to the above discussion:
https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/...

I've started the book, with the intro and first chapter. Curious where it will go. In the intro, French states that his goal is to focus on the lives, motivations, and impact of Chinese migrants to Africa, as most discussion on this topic focuses instead on African-Chinese government infrastructure-for-oil deals, and ignores the lived experiences of the million+ Chinese migrant laborers, businesspeople, investors, and their diverse relationships with Africans in different parts of the continent.

This will be interesting for its timing: The book was published in 2014, before or just as countries it covers (Mali, Mozambique) plunged into intense civil wars and separatist conflict. Root causes of these conflicts are linked directly to unequal wealth distribution and conflict funding from resource extraction. Chinese foreign investment (government and private) has certainly played a hand in this destabilization, while Chinese workers have born a particularly brutal part of the conflicts, often targeted for kidnappings and driving through or laboring in conflict zones at risk of bombings. Meanwhile, Chinese funding and engineering of infrastructure like roads and dams are among the most visible public works projects across Africa, with Chinese contributing more directly towards infrastructure than all other aid, private investment, or national government projects in many countries.

We'll see how French's predictions and analysis hold up, given hindsight of how terribly history has gone in the last decade.

Great intro Tinea!
I am looking forward to this book. It will be the next one that I'll start reading, hopefully in a week.

Thank you for the information, Tinea! I do not know the histories of Africa (including recent history) and am working to rectify that! I took a look to see whether there might be more recent books on the subject, but as far as I could find, all are more than five years old now. Interestingly, several books were published around that time, including one from a Chinese perspective.

What perspective might we get from this book? Even if French’s goal is to present African and Chinese and Chinese-African perspectives, is it possible for him to do so? I got the book from the library and as I was leafing through it, came across one interviewee expressing how they couldn’t have done such-and-such in the U.S. because “Americans are too intelligent.” Maybe that isn’t quite what was meant or maybe they are flattering their interviewer, no? What do you think?

Well, I do mean to read it, but I would feel much better if I had a more recent book from an African perspective to follow it up with.

I just started reading and like the idea behind the book: getting a better idea about current and future Chino-African dynamics by talking to Chinese migrants in several African countries. The author has lived and worked for years in Africa and in China, and seems particularly well placed to engage with both Chinese migrants and Africans on these issues.

I finished the book and posted my review.

French seems to ask readers to assess the difference between "investment and migration" versus "resource extraction and settler colonialism." French's argument appeared to be that the Chinese government's support for Chinese private business through lucrative deals with African elites that leave communities bereft of their resources, land, labor / labor rights, and tax benefits looks awfully similar to European colonialism, right down to settlers obtaining control of land through channels inaccessible to indigenous communities and settling without integrating in a legal or cultural sense.

What did you think?

I also finished the book and have mixed feelings about it. I did like reading testimonies of Chinese migrants throughout the continent: we hear so little from them directly.
On the other hand, the book is rather superficial and somewhat biased. I had the same questions as you Tinea, whether the interviewed migrants are really representative or not. Sometimes French seems to be trying to hard to prove how bad the Chinese are... as if other nations have been more kind to Africa.

Here is my review.

I'm reading the book and I feel like the author is spot on. At least from my dealings with various people from the diaspora. China and Africa have a very strained relationship as we can see simply from covid. The many Africans who were evicted from homes and told to leave China during Covid is not a new phenomenon like The anti-African protest of 1989 etc, point directly to the racial attitudes of the Chinese populace.

It's not hard for me to imagine the racism The Chinese businessmen have and act on in Africa. I dont think this was a small minority I think it reflects the overall thoughts of Africans the Chinese harbor.I have not finished reading so....let me finish!

Im a little nervous that China will take the business practices of the western world over to Africa. By business practices I mean
Destroying land, devastating the wildlife, polluting the enviornment, extracting resources and leave the resident even more destitute with ever worsening diseases like Cancer because of pollution.
Need I forget completely disregarding the lives of their workers.

Okay so I finished this read finally and here is my review

The book is repetitive. The detailed telling of his traveling and how each person looked,how the car rode, what the streets looked like etc was unnecessary and made the book boring. I can understand wanting to give a description of location to create the setting/tone of the book BUT it didn't add to the true value of the book and indeed brought it down as the information was oftentimes pointless And long.

The interviews started to become redundant after a while because they all seem to be saying the same thing and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. "The Chinese look down at Africans and are looking to re-colonize various countries on the continent". I was not at all shocked to read that the Chinese thought Africans do not work hard, do not learn fast, etc. Chinese has a history of Superiority to other nations and a history of racism towards dark skinned people from Africa.

I always think its weird when individuals leave their own country but keep its overall attitude. You left for a reason, No? Most of the Chinese interviewees stated " China was over crowded, not enough resources, they wanted a slower pace of life, didn't like the work standards etc but you come to another country to strip it of its natural resources, and work the natives relentlessly. You enacted on another People exactly what you hate about your own country. Weird.

I do think the author had pre drawn conclusions before writing this book but I also don't think they hindered the writing stance or were wrong. This read took me a while to get through. Overall not a good read, and the information wasn't new or revolutionary. Had the book been able to pull me in more I would have given a higher rating but it simply was boring and tedious to read.

Thanks for sharing your review Calla. The book indeed is sort of a self-centered travelogue, confirming pre-drawn conclusions as you state.
Interesting reflections on how migrants tend to reproduce the realities they want to flee!