Book Review
BOOK
An exciting, hugely
revealing account of
China’s burgeoning
presence in Africa – a
developing empire
already shaping, and
reshaping, the future of
millions of people.
A prizewinning foreign
correspondent in
Shanghai and in West
and Central Africa,
Howard French is
uniquely positioned to
tell the story of China
in Africa. Through
meticulous on-theground reporting,
French crafts a layered
investigation of
astonishing depth and
breadth as he engages
not only with policyshaping moguls and
diplomats, but also with
the ordinary men and
women navigating the
street-level realities of
cooperation, prejudice,
corruption, and
opportunity forged by
this seismic geopolitical
development.
We meet a broad
spectrum of China’s
dogged emigrant
10
China’s Second Continent
population, from those singlehandedly reshaping African
infrastructure, commerce, and
even environment (a self-made
tycoon who harnessed Zambia’s
now-booming copper trade; a
timber entrepreneur determined to
AUTHOR: Howard W. French
LANGUAGE: English
PAGES: 306
ISBN: 0307946657
PUBLISHERS: Vintage
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harvest the entirety of
Liberia’s old-growth
redwoods), to those
just barely scraping
by, still convinced that
Africa affords them
better opportunities
than their homeland.
And we encounter an
equally panoramic array
of African responses:
a citizens’ backlash
in Senegal against a
“Trojan horse” Chinese
construction project
(a tower complex to
be built over a beloved
soccer field, which locals
thought would lead to
overbearing Chinese
pressure on their
economy); a Zambian
political candidate who,
having protested China’s
intrusiveness during
the previous election
and lost, now turns
accommodating; the
ascendant middle class of
an industrial boomtown;
African mine workers
bitterly condemning
their foreign employers,
citing inadequate safety
precautions
and wages a fraction
of their immigrant
counterparts. AD