African migrants plight in China: Afrophobia impedes China's race for Africa's resources and markets

Kohnert, Dirk (2022): African migrants plight in China: Afrophobia impedes China's race for Africa's resources and markets.

Abstract

The social fabric of the migrant’s host country largely embodies major traits of the exclusion of ‘strangers’. The latter often focus on ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender. This applies also to the Afrophobia which spreads in contempory China. Thus, current news focused on the eviction of African migrants from apartments and hotels in China. Actually, an estimated 500.000 Africans live in China. The Corona pandemic aggravated their situation. The scarcity of Chines immigration assistance posed a challenge for Africans looking to secure residence permits, renew visas, or amend their status in other ways. They had to rely on informal or illicit networks to remain in the country. The African Union, various African governments and even the United States put pressure on Beijing over the ill-treatment of migrants, predominantly from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. Shortly before, five Nigerians had been reportedly tested positive for Covid-19 in Guangzhou, the metropolis where most Africans live and work, nicknamed ‘Little Africa’. These reports seem to be what has sparked the current wave of suspicion and anti-foreigner sentiment. Many African students and other migrants had left China already at the start of the outbreak. The remaing got stranded and chased around. Yet, even Chinese state media admitted that non-African foreigners like Americans and Filipinos, who accounted for more than half of foreigners living in Guangzhou who had the virus, were not singled out as scapegoats. However, racist attacks on Africans in China had a depressing long tradition, related to the expansion of bilateral petty trade of Chinese in Sub-Sahara Africa since the early 2000s and the subsequent influx of African traders in China. Already in 2008 African migrants had blocked a major street in Guangzhou protesting against the death of a Nigerian in an immigration raid.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: China, Africa, international migration, xenophobia, Afrophobia, racism, political violence, Afro-China relations, informal sector, illegal immigration, forced migration, slave-trade, minorities, remittances
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F16 - Trade and Labor Market Interactions; F - International Economics > F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business > F22 - International Migration; F - International Economics > F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business > F24 - Remittances; F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy > F51 - International Conflicts ; Negotiations ; Sanctions; F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy > F54 - Colonialism ; Imperialism ; Postcolonialism; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I24 - Education and Inequality; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I31 - General Welfare, Well-Being; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J4 - Particular Labor Markets > J46 - Informal Labor Markets; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N15 - Asia including Middle East; N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy > N35 - Asia including Middle East; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O17 - Formal and Informal Sectors ; Shadow Economy ; Institutional Arrangements; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O35 - Social Innovation; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

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