China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa

Two phrases have become quite common in Africa. "NI HAO" and "chi ku". They mean, respectively, "hello" and "eat bitter".

The first is relentlessly used by Howard French, an American reporter with a Ghanaian wife who has been based in both Africa and China for the New York Times and speaks Chinese, enabling him to converse with an array of Chinese people in Africa, from rugged bricklayers in Zambia to engineers in Mali and farmers in Mozambique. Mr. Howard French is the author of the book, "China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa"

The second phrase is used by many of Africa's Chinese diaspora to denote their ability to live rough in remote and inhospitable places in Africa.

Even though the numbers are hard to pin down, Mr French reckons that the million cited in his book's title

may be an underestimate. Most of them, he says, came to work on big projects, then stayed on as adventurous entrepreneurs on their own or in family groups. Chinese companies bring far more of their own people to work in menial jobs than Western companies would ever do.

Mr French says that in 2011 China's parliament debated a proposal to send as many as 100 million people to Africa. The rumour circulating widely in Africa that many of the more roughneck types of Chinese incomer are prison labourers is, the author says, entirely baseless. According to one source used by Mr French, "China's Export-Import Bank extended $62.7 billion in loans to African countries between 2001-2010, or $12.5 billion more than the World Bank." Other figures go even higher. What is clear, at any rate, is that Chinese people and money have flooded into Africa in the past decade, chiefly to buy raw materials to fuel China's roaring economy.

Even then, in some countries, the local Chinese are growing wary of Africans. There is the fear that the Chinese are taking over local jobs and businesses meant for locals. Ghana, Angola, and Nigeria, are for example countries where Chinese have been deported. Even then, some African presidents are comfortable with the look East policy and are happy to do business with China which does not demand any form of conditions when giving out loans, as opposed to high powered lecturing by Western countries.