China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa (Anglais) Relié – Séquence inédite, 20 mai 2014

A must read book!

Listen up, all you former African Missionaries, AID workers, Peace Corps Volunteers and Diplomatic corps. We've dropped the ball in a very important part of the world! Read about the new kid on the African playing field who is picking up the ball that we-all seem to have fumbled during the last 40 years. That kid's name is China! Author Howard W. French has given us an eye-opener of a book and we need to read it and talk about how Africa fits into the long range planetary game. This is a quantum leap forward from the struggles outlined in my own Africa historical fiction novel of the 1990's.

China is sending its people out on a global diaspora that seems to be infiltrating every African nation; much the same way that sixteenth century Europe financed entrepreneurs, trappers and traders to move to lesser developed parts of the world to benefit the homeland. Chinese farmers are being drawn enmass to the vast irrigable stretches along the Niger River in Mali to begin expanding rice production on a gigantic scale.
Chinese miners and engineers are moving into mineral rich nations from Namibia and Mozambique in the south through the Congo and on north into Ghana and Senegal in West Africa. Scores of Chinese builders are setting up schools, stadiums, hospitals, roads and bridges in Zambia, Botswana and Nigeria. All these countries are areas that the West only wanted to exploit but never planned to develop. Africans, sensing that the rest of the technological world might leave them behind have therefore turned towards the rising sun to find new funding and expertise.

This story, of course, is not all about lovely Chinese altruism, but rather a look at a model of development which the Chinese call win-win but, which in fact often gives the Chinese immigrants favored status in the country to do as they wish, while the African nation gets tokens of development and a lot of cash flowing into the pockets of the high officials within the country in order to keep them mollified. Does anyone out there still remember neocolonialism and imperialism? Will the Chinese become like the Portuguese or the British, or will they move beyond this initial exploitation to develop a vast commonwealth of African nations?

As one who considers himself to be somewhat of an "Old Africa Hand," I find Howard French's somewhat rambling dissertation on how China is beginning to wield its power, intriguing yet a bit disconcerting. We could be losing the whole ball of wax of the African continent's vast wealth while we piddle around trying to see if we can install democratic governments into nations so diverse that we don't even understand half their languages.

Buy it, read it discuss it and then act upon it!
Rick McBee

"China's Second Continent" is an extremely well-written and easy to read book. It is a collection of anecdotes and data that comes together to create the complicated and very nuanced story of China's understandable overseas expansion.

French's style is pleasing to read. Traveling in different parts of Africa, he conducts interviews with a multitude of interested parties, including government ministers, small-time Chinese traders, prostitutes, heads of state-run Chinese companies, union organizers, and workers for Chinese companies. French never backs away from his own personal thoughts and opinions of the people he meets, which is quite refreshing. Throughout his travels, he keeps a running commentary of his thesis, that China's long-term relationship with Africa extends far beyond quid-pro-qua mineral extraction and is headed towards a relationship whereby African countries will contribute to China's bread basket. French believes that this is a new and different form of imperialism.

There are two relationships dealt with in this book: that of individual Chinese entrepreneurs who migrate to Africa, and that of state-run Chinese companies who seem to fly by night in order to build infrastructure in exchange for natural resource or transportation concessions. The entrepreneurs are all colorful characters, well-described by French. The state-run company managers and workers are all tight-lipped, giving the reader the impression that there are nefarious plans at work. While many Africans, Europeans, and Americans complain that China's infrastructure projects in Africa are ramshackle and poor quality, leaving Africans with white elephants that they must manage, they are at least helping to build infrastructure, something the managers and high-level government workers say. Without direct Chinese investment, projects would drag on and never materialize, or only materialize in the form of hard-to-see investments in education, property management, and so forth.

Is China's investment, both large and small, in the country helpful? There is no solid conclusion here, but the evidence French presents seems to suggest that because there is no "capacity development" to maintain the large infrastructure contracts, the large, official investment is unhelpful.

Beyond the academic and economic conclusions, French is an excellent writer. The chapters in "China's Second Continent" are good-sized chunks that give a good picture of each country he visits, concentrating on the theme of meeting Chinese migrants.

A sobering account of China's African incursions. Big loans and bribes to the rulers of many African states result in big building projects for which the Chinese are low bidders. When the work is shoddy or when shovel-pushing African laborers complain about dangerous working conditions and low wages (under state minimum wage requirements, for those states that have minimum wage requirements), the answer is, "Talk to your President; he's the one who signed off on this."

And the states that enter into these deals expect -- or claim to expect -- that there is going to be technology transfer; but the Chinese typically bring in Chinese to do all but the shovel work.

Too many African states are selling their natural resources -- precious woods, iron ore, rich farm lands (!), copper ore, etc. -- and getting nothing that is going to last in return.

This book allows us to understand one aspect of Meredith's pessimism about post-colonial Africa in THE FATE OF AFRICA (2011). Meredith argues that the growth rates of many African states -- often above 5% annual GDP growth -- is not real growth, because so much of it has to do with Chinese construction and mining projects -- most of the money for which goes back to China.

But the book is more than a collection of sad facts -- it is also a lively account of French's travels in Mozambique, Liberia, Senegal, Zambia, and other states. It is well worth reading just as travel writing.