Lesotho meets China

The Chinese are everywhere

Even in the farthest backwaters of Africa, the Chinese are moving in

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Economist editors,

This article was prompted by extreme jealousy that the dominance of the entire human race by imperialist western nations are coming to a gradual and steadfast end. You can cry all you want, but power is shifting unstoppably to the Southern hemisphere and it is up to us--- the Africans--- to take advantage of new opportunities which we could only fantasize about when your beloved were in charge. I see this article as part of the last gasps of dying lion.


I noticed no one disputes that Chinese culture is intrinsically racist towards all things Black. I am relieved to hear that the Chinese character for Africa is not `evil' but merely `Not'. A continent called `Not'.

Contrast this with America(The Beautiful Country) and Britain (The Brave country) and you get an insight into Chinese thinking when it comes to racial groups. Like most other Asians they worship all things white and generally despise all things Black.

Telling the truth may sometimes offend but in the long-term it clears the air and opens up debate thus engendering undestanding.

Jester: you are merely reflecting a common belief amongst Western diaspora blacks who believe all the Worlds ills including all its racisms are the fault of the Whites. I am sorry but that is misguided and naive. The Chinese and subcontinental indians are perhaps the most racist human groups towards Black people. And I guarantee you they learnt it all by themselves. In India in particular it goes back thousnads of years when the `white' races defeated `the Black races' in the mythology Hindu traditions.

The reality is that the White Westerners are the least racist people as a social group towards Blacks and therefore the only real social allies we have.

Personally I am not looking forward to a world dominated by China and India.


China is wrapping up the purchasing of the whole continent - Africa - for US dollars, funny money US is printing to exchange with China for everything US getting from Chine, hence everything Americans are buying. China will prop up US dollar as long as it can buy world resources for it. It will drop dollar once done with shopping spree. It is important for China to get African resources through the legal purchasing process. Later when Africans will try to get it back China's use of force to protect its foreign property will be 100% lawful.


Well Chinese cannot be said as racist..but they lack moral standards when it comes to making money !!!! By this i am not referring to ordinary Chinese citizens but to there state owned industries which see no difference between ethical & unethical business when its some to doing business in Africa.... I have a friend from Fujuin Province & from her thinking process i believe the type of Chinese mentioned in the article are not alike there communist government....

"The Chinese Expansion"


Really this article has very little to do with the Chinese government. The are like the immigrants before them looking for better opportunity. Most of the immigrants come from Fujian, the same province where most Chinese in SEA come from. Paradox is, while Chinese like to associate with other Chinese, living in areas with alot of Chinese is never good for business, so it forces people to travel to more remote areas. They do business with Africans, employ Africans and have very little to do with the Chinese government. Most likely they will stay in Africa, settle down. They will send their kids to good private schools (either English / Chinese). Over the long run they will do a lot more good for Africa, than all the Chinese state owned companies and infrastructure projects will ever do. This aspect of Chinese involvement is overwhelmingly positive for Africa, compared to the mixed bag of official Chinese involvement.

Carlos Collaco

I would not like to read any more than what is literally written in this objective factual account of increased Chinese dealings and physical presence in Africa.

Truly it has been quite a fast and conspicuous growing level of interaction that could have deeper longer term implications.From the geopolitical to human perceptions to economics.

It is very much for African governments and societies to decide how best to harness support, finance, cooperation, collaboration, trade and investment from the outside world - East and West, North and South - to lift their economies and development.
It would seem to me that China has mostly been a reliable partner having already made and making important contributions around the Continent.

Nonetheless, it does still strike as odd - oddly enough(?)- that Chinese traders should break down every barrier from language to culture to environment to set up shop even in the remotest corners of little Lesotho!

In ten years it will become clear whether or not China-Africa relations proved a win-win.


yongke wrote: Is it me or does the article title so... sinophobic? No? What if the article was about Jews?
But Jews have no state-owned corporations leading by a party there ,neither have no interest in sponsoring the parliamentary building.



You are wrong to say that the Chinese character for Africa is "Evil." It's not. It is more like "Not." And most people won't link the character with bad things, let alone when it comes to transliterated names.


@Reigal: Your comment is blatantly xenophobic and acutely dangerous. Misguided sentiments such as yours - that the 'other' is out to get us - has caused severe misunderstanding and scapegoating leading to extraordinary violence under the pretense of preemptive action. Consider, as a very extreme case, the '94 genocide in Rwanda (and ongoing conflict in the Eastern Congo) when the Hutu Power movement fomented the general population to commit mass murder on the pretext that if they did not, they themselves would be the victims. A more germane example is, here in Lesotho, after the 1998 election, there was a wave of assaults and murders of Chinese shop owners, the result of misdirected frustration related to sentiments such as the one you maintain above.
@yongke: You raise a fine point about the title, but context is important. In many cases such a title would connote fear of 'invasion.' Yet, in the case of Chinese shopowners in Lesotho, there really is a Chinese owned shop in nearly every village, and as I'll show it's a good thing.
      I'm an American who has been living and working as a volunteer teacher in a rural village not far from Mokhotlong for the last two years. 
      Unfortunetly, there are two distinct phenomena being conflated here: the noteworthy presence of a Chinese shopowners throughout Lesotho and the Chinese governments foreign policy in Africa. The shop owners are in most cases immigrant who came to Lesotho with little, and are building new lives and raising families here. They are here for the long run and are not exporting resources nor by any stretch of the imagination subjugating Basotho. As the article mentions, the shopmowners "seem entirely divorced from geopolitics." These small
business owners are trying to make a livelihood in an open market and in doing so are employing local Basotho and providing goods and services (including building supplies for infrastructural development) to rural areas where such supplies were previously unavailable. Further, they often practice an efficient business model, strong work ethic, regular and predictable service, and a wide variety of supply. This puts the economic force on other local shop owners to improve their practices and ultimately the whole community benefits from the improved efficiency and supply. I know this sounds like a lesson from Econ 101, but I watch this process unfold daily. My best friend is a Basotho shop owner. We often discuss how he can gain a competative edge over the Chinese shop. By improving customer service and supply, he has done quite well. We are now making plans to build a bigger shop! 
Clearly adding the economic force of these new shops is not pleasant at first, as it forces other shop owners to improve their practices and can at first be perceived as 'outsiders' stealing business - such frustrations were partly the cause of the violence of 1998 - but ultimately the improved business practices and wider supply that results really is what is needed for the development of these rural areas.
       I'm not going to comment on China's foreign policy; it's another, seperate, story - but that's my point. Emigre shop owners in Lesotho should not be conflated with the foreign policies of the country they left any more than emigre shop owners in Queens, New York.  



I have been to Hong Kong and Guangzhou on transit and whereas I can't say that I was welcomed with both hands, I never really felt I was in real danger of being attacked for being black and neither did I hear someone utter some epithet within my earshot. There has never been an interaction on a large scale between Chinese and Africans, and I guess most of them are confused as to how to behave in front of a black person.

If there are some Chinese who are racists, where do you think they learned that from?

I am satisfied that at least from the political class, the Chinese do not treat Africans like children.


Africans should be very wary of the Chinese till they, at minimum change their character for Africa from `Evil' to something a little more benign.

Chinese racism towards black people is profound, cultural, ancient and deeply held and believed. Combine that with the tendency of all powerful empires in History to subjugate those weaker than them and you have a potentially destructive relationship

Zra My

China's true Africa policy, in my opinion, is driven by four goals: (1) access to natural resources to drive China's growth (2) the need to dispose of China's humongous population (3) a future growth market for Chinese products (4) projection of Chinese military might.

African nations need to take advantage of China's presence to grow their economies. The Chinese have not come to Africa as a "chosen race" who subjugated locals and treated them as inferior.

Apart from Caucasians who choose to work for Travel Channel, NGOs and the likes of National Geographic, one hardly sees white people slugging it out on the African continent. Why should they? Their ancestors have created a system that ensured their prosperity--a prosperity that is gradually ebbing away.

In Nigeria, I see Chinese shopping in the same markets as most locals. The Chinese fill the entire spectrum of society--ultra rich, middle class, poor-and-struggling. Unlike whites, who are almost always well off, the Chinese (some of whom have little or no command of English) blend into society and do what they know best--trade and make money.

Since 2003, China's presence in Africa has seen phenomenal growth and there appears to be no slowing down. I believe most Chinese who choose to move to Africa are there for the long term. They have come not as "expatriates" who 'demand services they could never afford in their home countries' but as people either on the mission of the CCP to invest, or to irk out a living doing so.

These are truly interesting times. To say Western influence on the African continent is declining will soon be an understatement. It will soon start dying.


Never mind if it is the remotest town in the poorest nation, never mind if it is the farthest backwaters of Africa, for the adventurous Chinese, there lies the new opportunity.

Africa was once the possession of Europe, mainly Britain. They relentlessly plundered the Dark Continent to build up their power. Fortunately, those dark days are over.

The Chinese come to trade, not to usurp. Perhaps The Economist needs to make that distinction impartially.
(btt1943, vzc43)


The Economist doesn't allow editing of posts and I realize mine is laced with several grammatical mistakes. Apologies.


The difference between Chinese engagement with Africa is that at least they pretend to respect Africa, its culture and politics. Almost perfect antithesis for European relations with Africa.

Another lie westerners like peddling is that China want's to "colonize" Africa, whatever that means. They could have done that in the 1444, when Zheng He, a great Chinese Admiral, made several back and forth trips between china and Africa. Back then, the Chinese only wanted to trade at a time when imperialistic thrust held much greater sway that it will ever do in the modern era.

The Seeker

Your knowledge of history is very weak if you make analogies like this between China and the West. Private Chinese citizens have a centuries old history of opening up businesses in foreign countries, usually driven by periods of austerity in their home province in China. Because of the Chinese work ethic, Chinese nationals can come to control economies where they entered as poverty stricken immigrants, as can be seen throughout SE Asia. BUT, you do not see Chinese political and military colonisation of any of these places. In fact, rather the opposite - there is no Chinese government involvement, and there are usually repeated pogroms against Chinese civilians as they become visibly wealthier than the locals due to ethnic resentment. There have even been articles in the Economists suggesting that initially poor Chinese immigrants in the last ten years who begin as waiters have come to control the restaurant trade (and not only Chinese restaurants) in European countries such as Italy.

So, economic colonisation, maybe, but I wouldn't make such facile analogies to the history of Western colonisation, which seems to be intimately tied to Christian evangelism (much as Islamic evangelism drove their military colonisation of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa. Neither Buddhism or Taoism has such a culture of conversion/evangelism.


It is indeed good news that China is every where in Africa opening businesses and creating employment for the impoverished people. In stark contrast, the west plundered, raped and enslaved Africa. The west wants Africa to remain its sole domain for plunder for ever, hence the hostility towards Chinese businesses rocking the boat. It is indeed good news; the IMF and the world bank will not be able to sponge wealth from impoverished people like before.


A classic example of phase 1 colonisation.
First come the traders and some workers (remember the european traders in the 15th and 16th centuries), then comes the political meddling (examples: Portugal in Kongo, Oman in Mozambique) followed by full scale colonisation and ended by a scramble for the place being colonised.
Difference is that this time it one country doing the colonising (for now. India will probably join in sooner rather than later) and wether or not phase 2 will be reached (it probably will)



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