None of the suggestions are original in themselves — nor is the recommendation for China to radically increase funding for research on Africa and exchanges with African NGOS — but Anbound proposes all this under a comprehensive ten-year, $400bn government- financed plan that would help the expansion of Chinese exports and manufacturing. The last of the 12 recommendations is facilitating family migration in both directions: in China, African migrants are to rejuvenate an aging labour force, while in Africa, Chinese are to bring capital, technology, and kn0w-how. The price label, and of course the advocacy of a comprehensive plan that includes migration, is exactly what suspicious Western critics have always feared: a grand Chinese strategy to take over Africa.

I am not sure what Anbound’s standing in China is. It is very unlikely that the government will take their advice, but I would be curious how widely shared such views are in policy circles.

if China’s global influence continues to increase and develop bit by bit, as it has, then history’s take on these Chinese peddlers will surely be full of the humour and intimacy of today’s British writings on the East India Company.

Overall, Zeng’s opinion of the book is favourable; his “only regret is that it was not written by Chinese.” And, “in order to avoid more regrets,” he recommends that it be published in Chinese.

Does Zeng agree with the authors’ alarmist tone and sees it as a positive thing, as some Chinese nationalists tend to do with Western books warning of China’s “rise?” Or does he agree with the warning, that the “silent army” has dire consequences in terms of crime, environmental hazards, exploitation and so on, as well? Or does he simply think the authors’ research deserves discussion? This is not clear.

But Su and Krahl highlight a population of Chinese businessmen and -women who are Muslim, and many of whom came to Cairo to study Arabic or religion. Yet for most of them, these are not ends but instruments to build business networks and eventually head home: “their first chance to really take part in the Chinese economic miracle.” In other words, their motivations seem no different from their non-Muslim peers. They, too, often find Egyptians “uncivilised”.

This is clearly not an in-depth study, but to the extent that it is correct it is a reminder of the limited ability of transnational networks to erode the power of the national imaginary, in China perhaps more than elsewhere. What I read reminded me of Antonella Diana’s study of the Dai in Sipsongpanna, Yunnan, whose reconnecting with ethnic kin across the border in Laos resulted not in weaker but in stronger identification with the Chinese nation, which seemed by comparison strong, prosperous and modern. Chris Vasantkumar’s work indicates that such reactions are not entirely absent even among Tibetans who move between Tibet and India.

Nonetheless, some parts go beyond the language we have been used to. For example, article 4.2.1 recommends treating job applicants of “different ethnicites, genders, races, nationalities, age, religions, disabilities, marital status and sexual orientation equally.” Such language is unusual in China, and although hiring disabled candidates in the construction industry may not be very realistic, it is nonetheless a nice idea. The same article also advises against the use of child labour, but since this is illegal in China, it is already covered by the Chinese government’s requirement that Chinese companies abroad comply with Chinese as well as local laws. Article 4.4.3 recommends localised procurement, and article 4.4.2 advises incorporating CSR standards into subcontracting arrangements.

According to International Rivers’ (IR) useful guide to the state of China’s international dam building industry, The New Great Walls, an updated version of which has just been released, Sinohydro’s 2011 policy, developed in consultation with IR, goes far beyond these guidelines: it adopts the World Bank’s principles on infrastructural projects, mandates “community” consultation and access to social and environmental impact assessments, commits  to a dialogue with NGOs, and requires at least equal income and livelihood levels for those displaced by projects. It also required informed consent by “Indigenous Peoples” where applicable, an interesting fact as China is not a signatory to the UN convention on indigenous peoples and the term is not used in China.

According to The New Great Walls, there were “at least 308 dam projects … in 70 different countries” being built with the help of Chinese contractors or financiers as of August 2012.

http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/the-new-great-walls-a-guide-to-china%E2%80%99s-overseas-dam-industry-3962

Global Times writes that a Singapore suit maker has moved its garment factory from Pyongyang (!) to Dandong, on the Chinese side of the Yalu River, where power supply is more stable, but continues to operate with over 400 North Korean workers. A Taiwanese investor based in Shanghai is also planning to open a factory in Dandong and hire North Korean workers. These workers earn around 1,500 yuan a month, compared to between 2,000 and 3,000 for Chinese workers. This figure, however, is a fiction because the workers themselves only get 150 to 200 yuan, while the rest goes to the North Korean government. (Another article, in 中国经济周刊, suggests a less drastic cut of 60%.)  It appears that the workers are mostly women, and according to the article, there are over 20 thousand of them in Dandong.

Although North Korean regulations only permit North Korean citizens to work in North Korean-owned businesses abroad, the article says that some of the workers have trainee visas. Dandong reached an agreement with North Korea that allows the workers to extend their visas without returning to North Korea. The workers are not allowed to leave the premises of the factory or to change employers. According to an article on 经济观察网, Dandong is “in the process of establishing a plan for North Korean labour.”  Two other border cities, Tumen and Hunchun, are said to have plans to bring in 10 to 20 thousand North Korean workers on intern visas, apparently modeled after the Japanese and South Korean systems that also use this euphemistic visa to bring in labourers. In fact, Hunchun apparently signed an agreement back in 2010 for 2,000 North Korean workers, and Tumen has set up a North Korean Industry Park 朝鲜工业园, with the North Korean ministry of trade and a company from Hebei Province as partners. But none of the articles reports any evidence yet of a massive influx of North Korean labour on the scale mentioned in the South Korean reports; in fact, applying for North Korean workers is described as a complicated process that sometimes ends in rejection.

The articles show how, at a time when China does not have a national immigration system, various municipalities are beginning to experiment with their own systems. The regime that seems to be in the making with North Korean workers is an extreme example of the type of exploitative labour migration regimes, in force in Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, that deprive workers of most rights while maximizing profits and minimizing the burden on the states involved. It is also another example of the logic of exception, i.e. the suspension of prevailing rules and protections in particular areas, that has been crucial to China’s development since the creation of the Special Economic Zones in the late 1970s.

At the same time, it is clear that as Chinese cities pursue such arrangements, they will be running against central interests. While Dandong hopes to create a new industrial boom on the backs of cheap North Korean workers as industrial wages go up in China, the central government is concerned about the potential for social unrest if there is an impact on Chinese wages or employment.

Finally, just as Aihwa Ong has suggested that the thrifty and self-providing Asian immigrant has become the ideal subject of the American economy, in neoliberal times the North Korean (and the Vietnamese) migrant seems to have become the model worker for China: self-disciplined, well-organised volunteering for overtime without being asked to, doing the work of two Chinese workers — or so the Chinese entrepreneurs cited in the articles say. “Most importantly, they are honest workers who don’t try to bargain,” one said. The idolization of North Korean workers comes at a time when Chinese workers are increasingly prone to strike for better labour conditions and higher wages, not only in China but also abroad. The recent illegal strike by Chinese bus drivers in Singapore for equal pay made headlines as the first in 25 years. In such conflicts, media in China is increasingly likely to take the side of Chinese nationals and demand better protection for them, as in this report on China Radio International.So China is becoming a source both of particularly onerous examples of the “East Asian migration management model” and of challenges to it.

I am re-reading the book for a class I am co-teaching, and am struck by the prescience of the preface, written in 1987 — except on the subject of South Africa:

…[R]ight up to the mid-1970s [...] observers predicted the arrival of Chinese warships in the ports of [...] the East African coast. [...] Today, in the late 1980s, it is difficult to remember that the alarm was once so great. [...] Europe and the United States have come to regard [China] as an amiable semi-ally in their confrontation with the Soviet camp. Africa [...] has not found strength or unity, and it has not been able to free itself from Western influence. Most of its states continue to be economically feeble and sustained by constant transfusions of European and American aid. [...] Neither China nor Africa seems likely, in the near future, to disturb the West’s repose.

But the quiet may be misleading. [...] the process of modernization in which [China] is engaged will enable it, in the end, to assert its will far more effectively [...] Africa may not always be weak. The continent may look a very different place, for example, when the apartheid regime in South Africa finally collapses and is replaced by a black-ruled state, rich, powerful and equipped with the nuclear arsenal which the defeated white minority will probably leave behind. And as African countries slowly become more stable and more prosperous, their leaders can be expected to grow increasingly impatient with the continent’s unhappy state of disunity and dependence on Western funds and advice. [...]

We are going to have to accept the fact that the various non-Western peoples are likely to come together with increasing frequency: that they are likely, more and more, to question the disproportionate share of the world’s decision-making power and resources which we — and the Soviet Union — continue to enjoy. [...] From this point of view we shall be well advised to follow with some interest the expansion of contacts between all parts of the Third World. Will Brazil step up its growing economic role in Africa? Will the Arab states live up to the pledges they have made to use their oil wealth to give a political lead to the poorer developing countries? [...]

The Third World peoples will certainly have little hope of destroying our supremacy unless they can make a success of working together — not just as governments or companies but as individuals too.

Xiyang invested $40 million in an iron ore mine, but after four months, by which time the North Korean partner has apparently mastered the technology involved, the mine was taken over by the North Koreans and Chinese workers evicted at gunpoint. Xiyang now demands $31.2 million in compensation, but the North Korean government says that it has failed to deliver on its investment promises.

As Perlez notes, it is perhaps not the fact of the dispute that is news but that it is public. This may have something to do with the size of the investment, which is the largest to date to get into such trouble. The article recalls that in 2009, Wen Jiabao persuaded North Korea to back off from nationalizing the Hyesan copper mine, developed with the Wanxiang group.

It appears that no major investment has been done by an officially state-owned enterprise. The article claims that this is despite North Korea’s invitations to China.

Production costs at the Xiyang mine are half that in China. The government is supposed to provide and feed labour, but Xiyang’s deputy GM says they were obliged to feed the 700 North Korean workers because they were too weak.

I don’t recall coming across news about the first, second and third KOAFEC conferences, which goes to show how little international interest there is in South Korea’s activities in Africa — or for that matter in Southeast Asia, despite the fact that in Cambodia, South Korea is a close rival of China in terms of investment volume. The visibility of Korean projects (mostly real estate) and restaurants, karaoke and massage parlours catering to Koreans in Phnom Penh probably surpasses that of their equivalents related to investment from China. The complaints about poor treatment of workers that one hears about Korean employers are close to that of Chinese, and sometimes worse.

The 4th KOAFEC declaration, in terms of its idea, structure, and contents, seems to copy FOCAC, but rather unimpressively and without the rhetoric of mutuality and equal partnership. Infrastructure development, ICT, human resource development, agriculture development, “green growth,” and knowledge sharing are identified as areas of cooperation, but without any specific targets. A short section entitled “The Way Forward” starts with the declaration that the “representatives from African countries expressed gratitute to the people and Government of Korea.”

The one seemingly specific commitment is that

Korea will contribute to the development of African countries by tailoring the Saemaul Movement, a rural development model of Korea, to suit country-specific circumstances and sharing the virtues of diligence, self-help and cooperation (point 25).

Just how this tailoring will happen is unclear, but “sharing the virtues of diligence” is certainly something that no Chinese government programme openly presumes to do (though, of course, many Chinese managers do). The New Community, or Saemaul, campaign (undong) for rural development, was a product of the Park Chung Hee dictatorship in the 1970s and seems like a highly problematic choice for international emulation — despite the Park renaissance taking place in South Korea at the moment.

As China is now a leading stakeholder in ADB, and as the ADB needs to compete against Chinese policy banks, questions arise whether its norms will eventually be eroded. Yet the article points out that China itself remains the third largest borrower from ADB, despite the fact that it can get the money elsewhere. Davies believes that “one of the main reasons why the ADB still lends money to China is to bring higher governance and safety standards to the country – and thereby legitimise some of its own infrastructure projects.” Rajat Nag, ADB’s managing director-general, says the bank’s presence helps China gain access to “best practice” and equipment and makes it easier for the government to impose higher environmental standards.

This suggests that the emergence of Chinese lenders on the international market may not result in a race to the bottom across the board, but that multilateral banks will retain a niche role in projects where social concerns are strong — in keeping with the new direction the World Bank’s new president wants to steer his institution.