Howard W. French’s 2014 work explores how a million migrants are forging a Chinese proxy domain throughout Africa, and whether it is heralding a new age of colonialism.[1]
"I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness[3]
Joseph Conrad’s seminal roman à clef follows Charles Marlow, a steamboat captain and his interactions with Kurtz, a trader who has fashioned himself into a demigod to carve an ivory-producing empire in the thickness of the Congolese jungle. Conrad’s story is memorialized as a pillar of the interplay between colonizers and the colonized and studied well beyond its beyond context of the Scramble for Africa. In China’s Second Continent, Howard French effectively assumes the role of a modern-day Marlow to introduce a few of the many Chinese emigrants embedded in post-colonial African society. His accounts reveal, contrary to Western belief, that Africa can hardly be considered post-colonial. Rather, colonialism has but taken on a new face; unlike the Eurocentric paradigm represented in Conrad’s work, this face comes from China.
French is not a lawyer, yet his work holds immense value for lawyers and students seeking to understand what the unavoidable rise of China’s new domain looks like at eye level. From bridge builders to karaoke bar owners and prostitutes, French presents an elaborate yet discordant network of Chinese expatriates, each carving their own empires out of what they certainly perceive to be a ripe opportunity. These individuals are the cogs in a great machine that is already determining the future of investment law, foreign policy in Africa, and beyond for decades to come.
Among the first presented by French is the most memorable of the book’s characters, a man named Hao Shengli, who obtained a large tract of brushland in Mozambique. Battling the elements with the grudging aid of hired local workers, Hao tirades about “God’s plan” for hard-working Chinese emigrants to find success in the African morass. Along the process of building his empire in a country of which he had no prior knowledge whatsoever, Hao even sent word to his sons to begin establishing a “brood” in the Mozambican countryside, to permanently cement his longevity. Hao’s case is extreme even for the colorful ensemble of emigrants whom French encounters, yet his philosophy is often echoed in varied form by the other Chinese workers and characters interviewed throughout the book. Many of them, especially Hao, cite and, indeed, embody the generational ethos of hard work and commitment to state ideals instilled in the youth throughout the period of Chinese history known as ‘The Great Leap Forward.’ This, married with the re-emerging sentiment that Africa represents a prime opportunity for investment, has propelled a gradual deluge of ambitious Chinese emigrants to Africa.
French covers his interactions with people of all stripes, with accordingly disparate opinions of and relationships with the Chinese state. At some times it is hard to shake the notion that the book is relegated to only the most eccentric and entrepreneurial characters at the cost of excluding perspectives from the ‘more ordinary’ of the Chinese emigrants. After all, the continent only has capacity for so many empires, yet French speaks mostly with the emperors. This is French’s biggest oversight throughout the book, although it is difficult to imagine a more captivating account for his purpose.
Otherwise, French remains balanced throughout. Conrad characterized colonial dominance as “an accident arising from the weakness of others.”[4] French does not necessarily prescribe this to the Chinese presence in Africa, and he is neither clearly disgusted by Chinese exploits nor infatuated by China’s progress in empire-building. He covers several topics stemming from China’s quest for hegemony in Africa in unbiased fashion, and this is where his journalistic prowess really shines. Without any clear villain, his conversations range from large-scale corruption to opaque business deals and state contracts, widespread environmental destruction and, most notably, mass abuses of workers’ rights. The latter is evident in his dealing with both the emigrants and the various locals they employ. The relationships between these parties vary throughout the book but are suspended by an unavoidable reality of Chinese interference in African society. Interestingly, it remains the elephant in the room yet is constantly reinterpreted by the locals with whom French interacts. What some see as a mass siphoning of African resources and labor, others see as non-altruistic but nevertheless significant contributions by the Chinese state to Africa’s development. For a Western reader, this phenomenon, officially the ‘Belt and Road Initiative,’ represents something else entirely, and this is whom he writes for.
French’s storytelling approach is appealing, as he seems uniquely suited for this project: a fluent speaker of Chinese and French – the new and the old colonial languages–and a capable writer in English. French’s style weaves his background in investigative journalism with Bourdain-esque prose, and he draws revealing testimonies from any subject. In Conrad’s famous words, Marlow “penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.”[5] French accomplishes the same, without steamboats or river guides, by penetrating the back rooms and construction sites inhabited by his subjects.
French’s grounded approach is his work’s crowning achievement. He presents himself, at the cost of sounding occasionally voyeuristic, as the journalist who knows how to get inside, the guy who will buy you a beer in exchange for a story, good or bad, so long as it is honest. In that way, French remembers his audience: non-pretentious and outside the Ivory Tower but intrigued by a significant phenomenon that has somehow stayed out of the media limelight. He writes for those who wish to see past the veil, recognizing that the veil itself is one of China’s most powerful tools. Mr. French is uniquely suited to circumvent academia to provide one with an insightful glimpse into a world often shrouded by misconception. So, while those seeking an academic explanation of the phenomenon may be turned off by the way French colors the narration with his own experiences and bringing himself to the foreground, it is not written for them. When reading, just be prepared for a healthy dose of egocentrism.
Besides remembering his audience, French also remembers his purpose, consistently returning to a most basic hypothesis: China’s incursion into Africa is a monumental occurrence that is likely to have ramifications for the world on many fronts in the coming years. Especially for a Western audience, the book’s message presents a startling reality. For years now, the popular notion has been that China’s inevitable hegemony is approaching, but not here yet. French’s vivid description of an African landscape indelibly changed by Chinese labor, and his candid interactions with some of those who have made it happen, compels one to consider that it has already arrived, just not in the place or form expected.
French excels at narrating the penetration of Chinese entrepreneurs and workers into a misunderstood continent. He does so for the common and curious reader in an entertaining fashion, at the cost of presenting greater perspective. Like Marlow, he uses prose instead of villainization to characterize a collection of individuals at a fascinating point in history. Instead of finding madness in the unknown, French finds a strange kind of order, and demonstrates Africa’s role in the global legal order has yet to fully emerge from the wilderness. The only thing certain is that one day soon, it will.
[1] Howard W. French, China's Second Continent (2014).
[2] Francesco Sisci, China plays winning and losing hands in Africa, Asia Times (Dec. 16, 2020), https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/china-plays-winning-and-losing-hands-in-africa/. [3] Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899, republished 1995), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/219/219-h/219-h.htm. [4] Id.
[5] Id.
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