The following article was written by Cheng Lyu, Jinmeng Li, Zander Rounds and Lucy Liu of China House Kenya
A lot has been made of the problems that Chinese companies and individuals are causing in Africa. In Kenya, we seem to hear a lot about these: how Chinese are racist and closed off; how Chinese are stealing jobs from Kenyans. Many commentators have marked and highlighted the role of Chinese nationals in the illegal and legal trade of wildlife products, like ivory and rhino horn, as a blemish in the otherwise (mostly) fruitful Chinese-African relations. However, these commentaries often come from external sources, in China or the West. What do Kenyans actually think?