The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa [Paperback]

China has recently emerged as one of Africa’s top business partners, aggressively pursuing its raw materials and establishing a mighty presence in the continent’s booming construction market. Among major foreign investors in Africa, China has stirred the most fear, hope, and controversy. For many, the specter of a Chinese neocolonial scramble is looming, while for others China is Africa’s best chance at economic renewal. Yet, global debates about China in Africa have been based more on rhetoric than on empirical evidence. Ching Kwan Lee’sThe Specter of Global Chinais the first comparative ethnographic study that addresses the critical question: Is Chinese capital a different kind of capital?
 
Offering the clearest look yet at China’s state-driven investment in Africa, this book is rooted in six years of extensive fieldwork in copper mines and construction sites in Zambia, Africa’s copper giant. Lee shadowed Chinese, Indian, and South African managers in underground mines, interviewed Zambian miners and construction workers, and worked with Zambian officials. Distinguishing carefully between Chinese state capital and global private capital in terms of their business objectives, labor practices, managerial ethos, and political engagement with the Zambian state and society, she concludes that Chinese state investment presents unique potential and perils for African development.The Specter of Global Chinawill be a must-read for anyone interested in the future of China, Africa, and capitalism worldwide.

Ching Kwan Leeis professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author ofGender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women andAgainst the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt.

List of Abbreviations
Preface

1 Unnatural Capital: Chinese State Investment and Its Travails in lƒ½