{"id":36598,"date":"2014-06-02T20:26:25","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T20:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36598"},"modified":"2019-06-01T13:21:42","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T13:21:42","slug":"chinas-second-continent-how-a-million-migrants-are-building-a-new-empire-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36598","title":{"rendered":"China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Knopf<\/a>
\n2014-05-20
\n304 pages
\nHardcover ISBN: 978-0307956989
\n9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches<\/p>\n

Howard W. French<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of Journalism
\nColumbia University<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China\u2019s<\/a> burgeoning presence in Africa\u2014a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people.<\/em><\/p>\n

A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times<\/em> bureau chief in Shanghai<\/a> and in West<\/a> and Central Africa<\/a>, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China<\/a> in Africa<\/a>. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting\u2014conducted in Mandarin, French, and Portuguese, among other languages\u2014French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth as he engages not only with policy-shaping moguls and diplomats, but also with the ordinary men and women navigating the street-level realities of cooperation, prejudice, corruption, and opportunity forged by this seismic geopolitical development. With incisiveness and empathy, French reveals the human face of China\u2019s economic, political, and human presence across the African continent\u2014and in doing so reveals what is at stake for everyone involved.<\/p>\n

We meet a broad spectrum of China\u2019s dogged emigrant population, from those singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, commerce, and even environment (a self-made tycoon who harnessed Zambia\u2019s now-booming copper trade; a timber entrepreneur determined to harvest the entirety of Liberia\u2019s<\/a> old-growth redwoods), to those just barely scraping by (a sibling pair running small businesses despite total illiteracy; a karaoke bar owner\u2013cum\u2013brothel madam), still convinced that Africa affords them better opportunities than their homeland. And we encounter an equally panoramic array of African responses: a citizens\u2019 backlash in Senegal against a \u201cTrojan horse<\/a>\u201d Chinese construction project (a tower complex to be built over a beloved soccer field, which locals thought would lead to overbearing Chinese pressure on their economy); a Zambian political candidate who, having protested China\u2019s intrusiveness during the previous election and lost, now turns accommodating; the ascendant middle class of an industrial boomtown; African mine workers bitterly condemning their foreign employers, citing inadequate safety precautions and wages a fraction of their immigrant counterparts\u2019.<\/p>\n

French\u2019s nuanced portraits reveal the paradigms forming around this new world order, from the all-too-familiar echoes of colonial ambition\u2014exploitation of resources and labor; cut-rate infrastructure projects; dubious treaties\u2014to new frontiers of cultural and economic exchange, where dichotomies of suspicion and trust, assimilation and isolation, idealism and disillusionment are in dynamic flux.<\/p>\n

Part intrepid travelogue, part cultural census, part industrial and political expos\u00e9, French\u2019s keenly observed account ultimately offers a fresh perspective on the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: why China is making the incursions it is, just how extensive its cultural and economic inroads are, what Africa\u2019s role in the equation is, and just what the ramifications for both parties\u2014and the watching world\u2014will be in the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China\u2019s burgeoning presence in Africa\u2014a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,16,11,14647,8,17,26],"tags":[221,17427,17428,13471],"class_list":["post-36598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-asia","category-books","category-economics","category-media-archive","category-monographs","category-politics","tag-china","tag-howard-french","tag-howard-w-french","tag-knopf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36598"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58224,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36598\/revisions\/58224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}