Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, independent entrepreneurial migrants from China have been increasingly flocking to Africa in search of "greener pastures." This paper scrutinizes the empirical foundations of the increasingly hostile discourses of African traders regarding the alleged encroachment of the West African urban market space by Chinese petty entrepreneurs. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, we aim to demystify this common allegation by exploring the diversity of influx channels through which Chinese commodities, said to create unfair and existential competition, come to the African continent. Our analysis of trade trajectories shows that Chinese products were coming to Africa long before the arrival of independent Chinese migrants at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Statistical evidence further supports our stance that Chinese entrepreneurs still represent a minority group in the import of "cheap China goods" into Ghana and Senegal.

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Whereas Senegal has long been sold as a showcase of democracy in Africa, including peaceful political alternance, things apparently changed fundamentally with the Senegalese presidentials of 2019 that brought new configurations. One of the major issues was political transhumance that has been elevated to the rank of religion in defiance of morality. It threatened political stability and peace. In response, social networks of predominantly young activists, created in 2011 in the aftermath of the Arab Spring focused on grassroots advocacy with the electorate on good governance and democracy. They proposed a break with a political system that they consider as neocolonialist. Moreover, Senegal's justice is frequently accused to be biased, and the servility of the Constitutional Council which is in the first place an electoral court has often been denounced.

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