Understanding Chinese immigrants in Africa from the perspective of national identity

ABSTRACT

In Africa, the number of small and medium-sized businesses owned by Chinese entrepreneurs is rapidly growing. However, the consequences of their economic interaction and social self-isolation are a topic of great debate in academia. This article seeks to explain their activities from the perspective of national identity. Everyday nationhood is the key conceptual framework used to explain how national identity restricts immigrants and their initiative to consume national identity. The main argument is that their domestic developmental situation drives them to open businesses so that survival is the leading force for everything they do, and to survive, they have to use various strategies to retain their advantages, such as opportunism, involution, the manipulation of relationships and internal competition. This article may contribute to research on the Chinese presence in Africa by examining the issue of national identity and its correlation with Chinese entrepreneurship.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese immigrants
• Africa
• national identity
• self-isolation
• survival

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As of January 1, 2018, Statistics by Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, Department of Outward Investment and Economic Cooperation on its website http://hzs.mofcom.gov.cn/.

2. Kernen, “Small and Medium-sized Chinese Businesses,” 252–268.

3. Sautman, “Book review: The Dragon’s Gift,” 221–222.

4. The critiques of China’s engagement in Africa, see Thornton and Thornton, Development without Freedom, 194; Zhao, “A Neo-Colonialist Predator,” 1033–1052.

5. Dieckhoff, Modern Roots, 21–42.

6. Rozman, East Asian National Identities, 78.

7. Lin, “Modern National Identity,” 22–46.

8. Fox and Miller-Idriss, “Everyday Nationhood,” 523–62.

9. McCrone and Bechhofer, Understanding National Identity, 11.

10. Veeck and Sokhna, “Chinese Engagement with Africa,” 400–418.

11. French, China’s Second Continent, 6.

12. Ibid. 31.

13. Fu, Immigration Policies of EU, 177.

14. Jauch and Sakaria, “Chinese Investments in Namibia.”

15. Ibid.

16. Park, “Perceptions of Chinese,” 131–153.

17. Yan and Sautman, “Chasing Ghosts,” 398–418.

18. Sautman and Yan, “‘Self-isolation’ Not Limited to Chinese in Africa”; Yan, Sautman and Lu, “Chinese and ‘self-segregation’ in Africa.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zhihang Wang

Zhihang Wang is a PhD candidate in the School of Government, Peking University, China. She obtained her BA and MA from the College of Humanities and Law, Yanshan University, China. Her research interests include national identity and modern Chinese politics.