The lunch crowd on Africa

My first hike through campus two years ago exposed me to tens of thousands of Chinese--and one African, whose eyes caught mine that fine morning. Those eyes seemed to suggest we were already connected, perhaps as two honorary members in a Society of Outsiders. Once I started taking Chinese classes, I got to know some other Africans--Evanio and Agilcio, both from Guinea Bissau, and a doctor from the Congo. A woman from Malawi. Sometimes on Wednesday afternoons we would sit around a bowl of peanuts in my apartment and stammer through our Chinese lessons--unable to easily drift off into our native languages, since we spoke Portuguese, French and English respectively. Chinese was our common language. I at least had the benefit of Chinese-English dictionaries and books. Not so easy for them.

It was in those days that I started thinking about the Sino-African relationship. My radar was up, and I started noticing things in the news and
in book reviews about China's growing presence in Africa. Today, for instance, there is buzz about Monday's Second Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation.

My classmate from the Congo already is a doctor, a gynecologist, but hopes to pursue further study here in China if he passes the HSK language exam. The two from Guinea Bissau aspire to be doctors, and sweet ones they will be if all goes well. They like China's mix of Western and Eastern practices and they value what they believe China has done for them at home.

I sense that some Africans embrace  China's less-Western values and are willing to overlook occasional abuses--no country is above them.  If nothing else, China and most African countries have developing economies, and they're all just trying to make the best of it. Why not cooperate?

Today a different collection of individuals, my Tuesday lunch crowd minus Shi Jun, huddled over tofu, vegetables and rice in the school cafeteria and talked about China's presence in Africa. These three Chinese people--my linguist buddy, a friend of her daughter's, and a stray academic who has taken to joining our weekly conversations--were each eager to dissuade me from seeing China's growing presence in Africa as a re-run of European imperialism, but each for different reasons.

The older two, who often see big gaps between government theory and practice, between professed motives and real intentions, were less critical than usual of the government and were focused more on the individuals who have migrated from China to Africa. Why not go to Africa? Life is just so hard for so many Chinese people, and there is so much competition for too few good jobs. Pollution is a problem--rivers are bad, cancer rates are skyrocketing (so one of them said). And they painted a picture of immigration not unlike that of any other diaspora, where people who have suffered seek more opportunity in a new place. And the Chinese are well known for their capacity to go on, to work hard, and to endure.

But one of them felt that the Chinese government has misplaced priorities and should be doing more for these very people (before they emigrate) and less for people abroad, possibly Africans. Should a mother give food to others if two of her own children are hungry? That one also felt that China actually has decent environmental regulations but is hesitant to enforce them, partly because it has too cozy a relationship with the tax-paying companies it is supposed to regulate.

But the youngest one thought that the Chinese government, however self-interested it might be in making business deals in Africa and elsewhere, has no choice. In the long run, China's poor will benefit from the relationships China is currying abroad. China needs to make deals for food. She argued that food security is a mind-boggling issue and that the government must do whatever it can to make allies and plan for the future, even if some of it is on the backs of working people. She didn't deny that many workers are getting a lousy deal--whether Chinese or African--and that some mineral extraction is almost stealing (her word) and some farm laborers are treated almost as slaves, but she thought the larger picture is entirely justifiable. Of course, China must look out for itself. What country doesn't? Moreover, she argued that what we're witnessing in both China and Africa--with high pollution and low working conditions--is an inevitable stage in  becoming a more developed economy. She compared China to England during the Industrial Revolution--and thought that it must go through a dirty phase on its way to economic well being--and China might as well take a number of African countries with it.

The older two were much less inclined to take an ends-justify-the-means perspective and yet one of them felt nothing good can happen until there is a little more widespread economic well being in China. One of them was quick to criticize the poor, who will do anything to survive, he felt; the other pointed fingers at the government, which is more interested in protecting Party members than in protecting China as a whole. These two obviously aren't nationalistic, but they are deeply patriotic--they love their homeland, no matter how flawed its policies and individuals might be.

I have no idea how representative this trio's views are of the general population's, but one thing is clear: Chinese people don't all think alike about the daunting issues facing their government.

Another thing is this: my experience as a foreigner is complex. I'm a foreigner who shares outsider status with other foreigners in a part of China that still tends to stare at anyone who is not a Han; and yet many of the other foreigners at this university, like our Chinese hosts, are non-Westerners who may be seeking decidedly non-Western paths.

We may be witnessing not just the emergence of China as a growing power, but the emergence of a collective energy that is decidedly non-Western.

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As my brother's friend MEB points out, a book some people might find interesting is Howard French's China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa.