Friday, June 26, 2015

Chinese in Mauritius: Going the Way of the Dodo?

Journalist James Wan writes about the venerable Chinese community in Mauritius in his latest article for New African magazine: "Meet Africa's Most Integrated Chinese Community"  (June 15, 2015).
Since 1999, making at least five research visits, I've spent more than 12 months in Mauritius, and wrote about the Chinese there in several early articles. The Chinese connection was critical for the country's industrialization. Many Mauritian companies today are headed by ethnic Chinese, including CMT, one of the largest textile firms. The legendary Hakka town of Meixian in Guangdong is the origin of many Mauritian Chinese. James gives us a glimpse of the possible future of other Chinese settler communities in Africa: thriving economically, marginalized politically.

h/t to Winslow Robertson

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Will Africa Feed China?

I've not been blogging much as I finished my new book, Will Africa Feed China? Last week I sent off the final edits. The manuscript is in production and OUP will be shipping it out on October 1 (Amazon is predicting a November release). I will post more on the book as the publication date comes closer.

Also looking forward to having a full-time research manager, Janet Eom, who will be starting at SAIS-CARI on July 1. We have been awarded some great research funding by Carnegie and the UK Economic and Social Research Council/DFID and Janet will be busy helping us to program these funds.

I hope to be blogging more now. I have a big backlog of posts on a number of topics, including the Lowy Institute's new Chinese aid data, South African survey research on Chinese enterprises, outrageous China-Africa stories, labor unions and Chinese firms, new data on economic cooperation, and more. Off next week to an Africa investment conference in Addis Ababa co-sponsored by the World Bank, China Development Bank, Govt. of Ethiopia, China-Africa Development Fund and UNIDO.