Chinese in Africa: expatriation regime and lived experience

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the expatriation regime and the lived experience of Chinese managers, professionals and contract workers in Africa. Moving beyond taking contemporary Chinese migration to Africa as merely a state project or personal activity, it contributes a synthesised analysis of the forces at state, corporate and societal levels to produce and sustain expatriation. Specifically, I argue that expatriation fulfils multiple objectives of (1) addressing new state-led development priorities of job creation and poverty reduction; (2) facilitating the global ventures of Chinese companies with accessible, manageable, and productive labour power; and (3) creating opportunities for different social groups of Chinese to pursue career or life goals. Empirical research with 66 expatriates working in Chinese telecommunications, construction, and manufacturing companies in Ethiopia highlights three contrasting pairs of features of the expatriate life: emplacement and displacement, interaction and fragmentation as well as mobility and immobility. Motivated and constrained by varied life situations and complex institutional circumstances, expatriates are variably empowered or dispossessed during their migratory trajectories. The expatriation process not only reproduces the social differentiation in the Chinese society based on education, places of origin and types of employers but also generates new forms of inclusion and exclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• expatriation
• power geometry
• lived experience
• China
• Africa

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank all participants in the research for their trust and generous sharing of their knowledge and experiences. She is also grateful to Dr. Wei Li, Dr. Yoon Jung Park and the two anonymous reviewers for their very detailed and constructive comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Across Africa, Chinese migration has been supported by favorable local policies. See Liu (2019) for a discussion of Chinese migration to Nigeria.

2 Chinese government operates at four levels of administrative hierarchies: (1) province and municipality; (2) prefecture and prefecture-level city; (3) county and county-level city; and (4) town.

3 Poverty household is defined by an annual per capita income of less than RMB 865 (equivalent of US$136). Counties with an annual per capita income of less than RMB 2300 (equivalent of US$361) are designated as national-level poverty county (NPC). In 2012, there were a total of 832 NPCs in China. In addition, provinces can designate local poverty counties based on their economic development conditions. By the end of 2020, Chinese government announced that it had lifted all NPCs out of poverty (Lugo, Raiser, and Yemtsov 2021).