Chinese Attitudes toward African Migrants in Guangzhou, China

Abstract

African migration to China has emerged as a significant sociological phenomenon only very recently. Africans in China are predominantly self-made entrepreneurs doing business face-to-face with Chinese entrepreneurs and living among local Chinese residents. Their encounters with the Chinese in local markets, residential neighborhoods, and on the streets offer a rare opportunity for exploring interracial dynamics beyond the Western black–white paradigm. In this article, we examine how Chinese perceive Africans vis-à-vis other foreigners and how contexts and conditions of Chinese–African encounters affect attitudes and racial formation. Our data suggest that the attitudes held by local Chinese residents in Guangzhou toward African migrants are ambivalent. The Chinese tend to perceive Africans negatively in general, but they also look upon Africans’ overall presence in a positive way and express openness to interacting with them. Our findings indicate that the mechanisms of social exclusion and inclusion are shaped by the intersection between the types and levels of contacts and the social contexts in which intergroup encounters occur. While there is a rising awareness of racial differences among local Chinese in Guangzhou, the process of race-making differs from that in other immigrant gateway cities of the Global North. Theoretical implications for racialization are discussed.

Keywords:

• African migration to China
• intergroup relations
• interracial dynamics
• racial attitudes
• racialization

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Yanjun Li, Senyuan Lei, and Chengwei Xu for their research assistance. We also thank the International Journal of Sociology guest editor Stephanie J. Nawyn and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive critiques that helped to strengthen the article, but we bear full responsibility for the article’s contents.

Notes

Reported by the Sixth Chinese Census of the Population, retrieved February 3, 2016 (http://www.gzstats.gov.cn/tjgb/glpcgb/201105/t20110517_25227.htm).

“More than 300,000 Africans illegally staying in Guangdong,” retrieved February 3, 2016 (http://news.163.com/14/0815/08/A3M6IDUV00014SEH.html).

Guangzhou is the only capital city in China that has attracted high numbers of African migrants. In Guangzhou, local control over African and other foreigner traders and merchants living in low-income neighborhoods has been tightening over the course of our fieldwork and has continued since fieldwork was completed. Although local authorities intensify law enforcement, actual raids are inconsistently and unsystematically carried out, amounting to little more than “hide-and-seek” games for the migrants (Li et al. 2009).

Chinese respondents were selected using purposive sampling techniques: quota and snowball sampling by neighborhoods (Xiaobei neighborhood in which Africans are densely concentrated, a second neighborhood adjacent to Xiaobei, and a third neighborhood in a different part of the city with no foreigners present). Small business owners and residents in the three neighborhoods under study, and college students were selected via snowballing. We also selected a snowball sample from college students from four universities. African respondents were selected via snowball sampling and were limited to those who lived in the African concentrated in Xiaobei neighborhood and the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to Xiaobei (Zhou et al. 2016).

This study was conducted by one of the coauthors Tao Xu. The data contained in-depth interviews with 31 African merchants (26 male, 5 female) and participant observations in the main shopping mall and neighborhoods with a sizable African presence in 2008 and 2009.

“Chinglish” has emerged as the major lingua franca for communication between groups. It is “characterized by simple English vocabulary and sentence structures, repetition of key words, the mixing of Mandarin expressions, and clear influence of Chinese syntax, among others” (Han 2013: 88).

Some directly trade with Chinese manufacturers.

Chengzhongcun, or literally “village in the city,” is an urban form distinct to contemporary China (Zhang 2003). Chengzhongcuns are villages surrounded by new real estate development. Landless farmers in such villages rent out their housing to augment their incomes from wage work. Housing rental is lucrative, especially as the demand increases among internal migrants, who lack financial means and GZ hukou status to access housing in the formal market (Zhou and Cai 2008). Rental agents preferred renting to foreigners over internal migrants, based on our interviews with rental agents.

Mathews and Yang (2012) note that African traders in Guangzhou, particularly of the first type that we describe, tend to compete with Chinese traders who are doing business in Africa or in Chinese import/export firms. These two groups of traders are competing to be the dominant middlemen in China-Africa trade.

Interviewed by Min Zhou on June 24, 2012.

Interviewed by Min Zhou on June 24, 2012. Ms. Chen’s office was a makeshift shanty between two houses. In front (by the sidewalk), there was a sitting area with two wooden couches, a coffee table, and a few plastic stools. During the interview, a couple of Africans stopped by and just sat there. They indeed called Ms. Chen “Mama” and seemed to know her well as their smiles and gestures indicated.

Interviewed by Tao Xu on December 23, 2008.

In-depth interviews with Mr. Li, August 20, 2011.

Interview with Mr. Lai during fieldwork, August 15, 2011.

Interview in Ms. Bai’s home in the “Chocolate City,” June 20, 2011.

Interviewed by Tao Xu on December 16, 2008.

Interviewed with Adam in a restaurant in Xiaobei by Zhou’s research assistant (RA), July 2, 2011.

Since August 2008 the Guangzhou government has counted foreigners as part of the “floating population” category and thereby subject to the same rules and regulations (cited in Lan 2015: 295).

Staff from the local government agencies, such as City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau and Municipal Bureau of Taxation (chenguans and tax collectors), as well as private security guards, also wear similar uniforms. They are often mistaken for police by the Africans.

Interviewed with Ping in her office in Xiaobei by Zhou’s RA, August 16, 2010.

Interviewed with Aabil in a coffee shop by Zhou’s RA, August 11, 2011.

Interviewed by Tao Xu on March 18, 2009.

Interviewed by Tao Xu on March 26, 2009.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Min Zhou

Min Zhou, PhD, is Tan Lark Sye Chair Professor of Sociology, head of the Division of Sociology and director of the Chinese Heritage Centre at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is also professor of sociology and Asian American studies and the Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US–China Relations & Communications at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Changjiang Scholar Chair Professor at Sun Yat-sen University, China. Her research interests include international migration, Chinese diasporic studies, ethnic entrepreneurship, immigrant education, racial and ethnic relations, Asian American studies, and urban sociology.

Shabnam Shenasi

Shabnam Shenasi, PhD, is a researcher at University of California, Los Angeles. Her main research interests are international migration, racial and ethnic relations, and social inequality. Her doctoral dissertation looks at the relationships between ethnic diversity and xenophobia in Europe.

Tao Xu

Tao Xu, PhD, is an assistant professor of sociology and an adjunct researcher at the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, China. His main research interests are internal and international migration, social stratification, and social inequality.