The Yellow Man's Burden: Chinese Migrants on a Civilizing Mission

Chinese Migrants in Africa as New Agents of Development? An Analytical Framework

“…While migration in general has largely been shaped by the demands of the capitalist world economy, such structural analyses can conceal important ways in which capitalism worked through the exploitation of difference, particularly race and gender (Silvey, 2004). So while Mung (2008) is right to see parallels between late 19 th Century Chinese contract labour migration to Africa organized by the colonial empires and contemporary labour recruitment, there are clearly important differences in terms of the decentralized coordination of recent migration, the nature of the Chinese and African states then and now, and the ideologies of development that underpin such movements (Nyiri, 2006). In turn this shapes the second issue in that we must be much sharper around the social and geographical characteristics of migrants, especially differences within overseas Chinese (Xiang, 2005).…”

The Art of Neighbouring. Making Relations Across China's Borders

“…Produced in the late 1990s, it was one of a number of dramas about audacious Chinese migrants who make it in the world. There, the protagonist unveiled a similar scale model of urban modernity -for a Chinese trade city near Paris -to an applauding French audience (Nyíri 2006). Since then, the fantasy of a Chinese hero bringing modernity to the West has come close to turning into reality.…”

“…Just as China's minority subjects are often constructed as modernity's Other (see e.g. Gladney 2004, Nyíri 2006, Schein 1997, some of the Chinese borderlanders and traders still harbor an impression that the Vietnamese are a 'minority' who should follow the Chinese lead in pursuit of frontier modernity. Many traders who visited Lao Cai likened this border town to a Chinese city 'in the 1980s', and compared the Vietnamese state of living to what the Chinese had already experienced in the past.…”

Chinese Migrants in Africa as New Agents of Development? An Analytical Framework

“…Although migration in general has largely been shaped by the demands of the capitalist world economy, such structural analyses can conceal important ways in which capitalism works through the exploitation of difference, particularly race and gender (Silvey, 2004). So, although Mung (2008) is right to see parallels between late nineteenth century Chinese contract labour migration to Africa organised by the colonial empires and contemporary labour recruitment, there are clearly important differences in terms of the decentralised coordination of recent migration, the nature of the Chinese and African states then and now and the ideologies of development that underpin such movements (Nyiri, 2006). In turn, this shapes the second issue in which we must be much sharper around the social and geographical characteristics of migrants, especially differences within the Overseas Chinese (Xiang, 2005).…”