Officially, some 20,000 Africans live in China, mostly traders and students. But unofficial estimates suggest that 20,000 might be living in the southern city of Guangzhou alone. Most are from Nigeria.

Alexander Demissie, an Ethiopian who does research on African-Chinese relations at Bochum University in Germany, explains: “Basically, they are middlemen. They set the connection between the Chinese manufacturers and the African traders. Most of the time, these Nigerians living in Guangzhou are highly-educated and speak very good Chinese because they studied at the universities.”

“Sun Yatsen University in Guangzhou is one of the famous universities where you can find a lot of African students. It’s of course easier for them to have access to the Chinese market because of the language. This helps the African traders coming to China for two weeks or three weeks to buy goods.”

As China has been very keen on promoting trade and political relations with African countries, visa regulations tend to be generous, says Demissie: “People can easily get a Chinese visa, as soon as they can prove that they are traders or students.” He adds that this incident should not have happened and says such problems are unusual.

Police is tougher with Africans

On the other hand, he says, the police does tend to be tough with African immigrants and “Africans do face harsher controls inside China than people from other countries.”

He Wenping, an Africa specialist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, says that many Africans are better integrated in China than Westerners. “The Africans, both traders and students find it easier to overcome the language barrier than Europeans and Americans.”

“I’ve come across so many people who speak perfectly fluent Chinese. They find it easier to master the different tones we have in our Chinese pronunciation. They easily adapt to the local environment in the Chinese cities, and Chinese food is no problem for them.”

Africans not always accepted by Chinese society

But Alexander Demissie, who has also lived in China, says other issues can create difficulties: “From my own experience, it’s not easy as an African to have a Chinese girlfriend, for example. Of course, if you live in one country, you will take part in the social life, you might also get a Chinese girlfriend and so on.”

But he says people around might not consider this in a friendly light, adding that some people act rudely or badly towards Africans in China.

Demissie says there are also occasional street fights between groups of Africans and of Chinese, and that there is a general lack of knowledge about Africa among ordinary people in China.

But with growing exposure through trade and political links, this seems likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Author: Thomas Bärthlein
Editor: Anne Thomas