Covid-19 drove hundreds of Africans out of Guangzhou, China. A generation of

On Mar 18, 2021

“Now it is very, very quiet,” Dieng says of Little Africa, a nook of Guangzhou informally named after the swell of thriving African businessmen who once lived, ate and prayed there in huge numbers. “Not many foreigners now, and all the small shops are closed. Small business around here? No more.”

At the turn of the 21st century, Guangzhou — already a magnet for internal migrants — became an accidental experiment in multiculturalism in China, as loose immigration rules and factories churning out cheap products attracted droves of African entrepreneurs.

As interracial marriages in the community flourished, Bodomo theorized that, in time, an African-Chinese minority would arise, becoming China’s 57th ethnic group and demanding full citizenship rights. Today, that looks unlikely. By April last year, just 4,550 Africans were living in Guangzhou, according to local authorities, including students and diplomats as well as businesspeople.

Ten months on, more than a dozen experts and Africans who spoke with CNN said that number has further dwindled, due to several repatriation flights to Nigeria and Kenya, and tougher coronavirus-era visa rules, with most foreigners barred from entry to China. Many who remain are rooted in China by Chinese wives and children.

“For the whole issue of African traders in Guangzhou, I suspect that era is over,” says Gordon Mathews, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “I’m skeptical that (their physical presence in the city) will ever be at the scale that it has been.”

The business case

One reason for the decline of the African community over the past year is strictly business.

In 2019 alone, of the 2.95 million foreigners entering China through Guangzhou, 358,000 were from African countries, according to local officials. Many came on quick visits to buy from the region’s factories, using African residents as middlemen to connect with Chinese wholesalers.

When Covid-19 prevented foreigners from visiting China, the factory owners of the Pearl River Delta — often cited as the world’s biggest urban area — had to rethink their business model.

Many in the area, which includes the cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan and Dongguan, began advertising their services on e-commerce giants such as Alibaba. This allowed them to connect with African customers directly, rather than waiting for them to come to the city in person to place orders, as had been the way for decades.

Pat Chukwuonye Chike has been in Guangzhou for nearly two decades, living on a business visa he renews each year. When Covid-19 hit, he stayed to avoid being separated from his Chinese wife and three African-Chinese children. He shuttered his clothing store, previously frequented by droves of visiting foreigners, and set up an Alibaba-type service on Facebook, which is banned in China but can be accessed via a virtual private netwoprk (VPN).

Pak Chukwuonye Chike doing business with Chinese counterparts in Guangzhou during the pandemic.

His online shop, Africa China Trade Service, connects about 20 factories he knows to his contacts in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea and Ghana. The advantage, he says, is his clients know they’re dealing with factories they can trust.

But it’s a competitive…

Covid-19 drove hundreds of Africans out of Guangzhou, China. A generation of

The business case

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