China Africa Encounters: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Realities

The COVID-19 crisis has placed a heavy strain on the growing economic and political relationship between China and the African continent. As Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt-and-Road initiative continues to expand Chinese power, pushback has resulted from the spread of COVID-19 and African governments’ increasing debt to the Chinese government. These developments raise a delicate question: What might further complicate this relationship? More importantly, what is missing in the predominantly land-based, administrative conceptual framework addressing the Chinese-African relationship? Based on her ethnographic fieldwork in Tanzania, Guangzhou’s African trading-communities, and Hong Kong, Helen Siu explores the crucial layers of maritime historical connections across Asia and how these encounters are expressed in everyday life among stakeholders who have traversed the continental divides.