The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa by Ching Kwan Lee (review)

Chinese economic and political influence in African countries is a dramatic example of the resurgence of Chinese power in the early twenty-first century. For many observers, this phenomenon is a threat to Western interests. "In Africa, we are already seeing the disturbing effects of China's quest to obtain political, economic, and military power," warned US National Security Advisor John Bolton in a December 2018 speech. Western diplomats and officials may be ringing alarm bells as loud as they can about China's interest in Africa, but such dire warnings offer precious little understanding about the engagements of Chinese company employees and officials on the ground. Sociologist Ching Kwan Lee thus offers a well-grounded ethno-graphic study of the complex negotiations between Chinese and Zambian companies and workers. Rather than turn a (conveniently) blind eye to the ways Western companies exploit African workers, Kwan Lee compares the goals and methods of Chinese firms with Canadian, Indian, and other firms. The title of The Specter of Global China should thus be understood ironically, rather than a mere echo of the anguished chorus of critics of Chinese policy.

One of the most striking conclusions of this study is how Kwan Lee contends Chinese state capital's aims and methods of operation are in some ways significantly different from private capital investment from India and Western countries. While private multinationals focus on short-term goals and the bottom line, Chinese companies are willing to engage in longer term projects and promote stability over immediate gain. Chinese personnel point to their ability to endure tougher conditions ("eating bitterness") with fewer conveniences as a sign of national superiority, even as Indian and Western expatriate workers expect comfortable homes and private schools for their children. Yet Chinese workers made more money than they could for similar jobs in their homeland, especially as Chinese firms covered housing and other costs. Chinese managers in private are as openly contemptuous of Zambian work habits as any colonial official might have been over half a century earlier. The supposed indolence of Zambians and the spendthrift ways of foreign competitors were juxtaposed by Chinese workers' claims to be culturally superior to others. On the other hand, Chinese policies of promoting Sino-Zambian cooperation have meant that the Zambian state has much more influence over Chinese companies than Bolton's denunciation might indicate. Kwan Lee herself was able to conduct her study because Zambian officials demanded she be allowed to do so, even as Chinese Communist officials initially obstructed her efforts out of fear she was seeking to help ruin China's reputation.

For Zambian workers, the differences between private and Chinese state capital are less profound. Mining and construction companies in Zambia rely on sub-contractors to lower labour costs, are generally fairly unaccommodating to Zambian trade unions, and exploit the decline of state services that had existed under the socialist one-party state of Kenneth Kaunda from independence in 1964 until 1991. Few Zambians held senior management positions in any business surveyed by Kwan Lee. No foreign companies show much concern for the safety of mining workers, although the Chinese concerns about long-term stability do allow for limited improvements at times. Chinese companies did not experience a statistically significant higher number of strikes than other firms. Structural adjustment programs and the turn away from socialist economic planning had radically shifted the playing field in favour of management over labour, regardless of the particular national origins of the foreign company. One striking image depicted here are ruins of bowling allies and mess halls once run by the Zambian mining trade union in the days of Kaunda's regime. While one might think of the mixed legacies of post-socialism in former Soviet bloc countries, this project shows again how the promises of an egalitarian path to modernity made...