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Apr
With China’s entry into the WTO in December 2001, there was a dramatic increase in the number of Africans coming to China to buy goods for sale back in Africa. This has created a visible presence of Africans in Guangzhou, which has been receiving, in many cases, a lot of negative coverage in newspapers and magazines on issues of immigration irregularities.
However, behind all these negative reports in the newspapers, there are many more positive stories about the presence and impact of Africans in China. In particular, their substantial contributions to the development of Africa – China relations are rarely recognized.
It has been necessary to do in-depth on-site studies beyond the occasional one-day journalistic or fly-by academic coverage to come to a deeper understanding of Africans in China. Despite the negative news coming out of Guangzhou, there are a substantial number of Africans who are employed and engaged in both the formal and informal economies of China in major cities such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Yiwu, Shanghai, and, of course, Beijing. What are these Africans doing in China? How are they received? And how does their presence contribute to an understanding of larger issues about Africa-in-China and China-inAfrica?
The papers in this volume address issues relative to many aspects of Africans in China: issues of history, society, culture, language, and Africa – China relations, among others. How are these Africans being influenced by their Chinese hosts and how do they in turn influence their hosts? How does their presence in China affect trade between Africa and China and how do these Africans contribute to the economies of the countries they originate from? Is this new and emerging African Diaspora different from other African Diasporas? What theoretical and methodological insights does the study of these African migrants in China have on theories of migration and Diaspora studies? These questions are tackled directly or indirectly by all the six papers in this volume.
Access and download the full The Journal of Pan African Studies publication at: http://www.jpanafrican.com/docs/vol7no10/Bodomo-2-Africans-China.pdf