China–Africa Exports: Governance Through Mobility and Sojourning

ABSTRACT

A centre for Asian and intercontinental immigration and export-oriented production, Guangzhou city is at the forefront of China’s global interactions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines informal governance mechanisms that co-ordinate the circulation of goods and capital between China and Africa. The question addressed is: What roles do mobility and sojourning play in governing trade relations? The analysis is informed by research from three fields: economics scholarship on the trade–migration nexus, ethnographic studies of informal trans-border trade, and historical accounts of long-distance trade in pre-colonial and colonial eras. These traditions point to different ways in which the mobility of people and goods are interlinked. In the case of China–Africa interactions, the flow of goods has increased in tandem with the number of visits by African itinerant traders. The empirical discussion demonstrates that the emergence of intercontinental movements of goods and people between China and Africa was predicated on the brokering role played by African sojourners in Guangzhou. Of particular importance was informal hospitality and logistics infrastructure set up by Africans in the late 1990s, which subsequently evolved and adapted. This infrastructure has facilitated the mobility of people and goods and increased the pace at which trading capital circulates.

KEY WORDS:

• Africa
• borders
• China
• informal trade
• logistics
• migration

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the participants at the workshop “Cross-border Exchanges and the Shadow Economy,” organised by Tak-Wing Ngo and Eva Hung at Leiden University in December 2015, for discussions that advanced the analysis. I am also grateful for constructive criticism and input from the reviewers and editor at the Journal of Contemporary Asia. I benefited from the hospitality of Professor Li Zhigang and the School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, during the fieldwork for this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest has been reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway [grant number 222410].