CHINESE IN AFRICA

CHINA'S ECONOMIC INVASION OF AFRICA

About a million Chinese, from engineers to chefs, have moved to work in Africa in the past decade. Xan Rice talks to some of them to find out why.

Xan Rice

The Guardian, February 6, 2011

In December 1999, a 24-year-old Chinese man called Zhang Hao left behind the freezing winter of his native Shenyang province to fly to Uganda. Zhang was nervous. He spoke no English. The journey was not even his idea, but that of his father, who had worked in Uganda a few years before on a fishing project involving the Chinese government.

"If you want to start something – and be the boss – Africa is the place to do it," Zhang's father had told him when he asked for business advice.

Zhang had quit university to travel to east Africa, but he did not need a degree to spot easy money-making opportunities as soon as he set foot in Kampala: goods that were available cheaply in every city in China were either expensive here, or unavailable. He started by importing shoes. Then schoolbags. Then fishing nets, nails and bicycles.

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