This essay is a preview of Dr. Roberto Castillo’s forthcoming article on “race” and “racism” in Africa-China relations. It was originally published as a multipart Twitter thread and has been re-posted here with the author’s permission.
Some years ago, during a lecture I was giving on media representation, ‘race’ and ‘racism’ in Africa-China relations in a Hong Kong university, a student from Nigeria raised her hand and made a remark that blew my mind and left me thinking:
‘you cannot compare the history of racism against Chinese to the history of racism against Black people. In terms of racism, only Blacks can speak. In fact, when it comes to Chinese in Africa, they are as racist as Europeans.’
The student was one of the most brilliant students I have ever taught, a great conversationalist, with ample international experience across Africa and the West.
After a brief discussion (during which other African and Chinese students intervened), we managed to agree as a class on the point that the histories of ‘racism,’ racialization, and racial prejudice are the outcomes of complex historical, transnational and global processes. And, that these processes are not exclusive to one group or geographical region; and, perhaps more importantly, that they cannot be written within one single ‘history of racism.’ The Nigerian student, however, remained hesitant, and not fully convinced.
Ever since I started researching and teaching Africa-China relations in 2011, I have been in countless discussions where questions about ‘race’ and ‘racism’ in contemporary engagements between Africans and Chinese have emerged.
This is a common experience for researchers of Africa-China relations. Historian Jamie Monson (2015), for instance, notes that audiences at her talks focus more on ‘race’ than the historical sources she has found.
In my experience, questions related specifically to ‘race’ and ‘racism’ are more likely to come from Western audiences or journalists, or from non-Western students and scholars in Western academic environments.
Indeed, Western audiences often racialize conversations about Africa and China. When I find myself in the midst of these conversations, I normally start by explaining that while Africans and Chinese both have a ‘racial consciousness,’ and that there are some ‘racial tensions,’ these do not characterize Africa-China relations. I often argue that as the contact increases, it is evident that there is a significant amount of ignorance about the racial histories of the other — as shown by my Nigerian student’s remarks.
For the last decade, there has been a scholarly and media fascination with Afro-Chinese engagements. The academic literature in the field of Africa-China relations has increased exponentially (see Alden & Large 2019; and Li 2015). A simple online search for Africa-China related topics yields innumerable media results. The fascination with this renewed engagement is in no way exclusive to the West.
In her book ‘Mapping the New African Diaspora in China: Race and the Cultural Politics of Belonging,’ Shanshan Lan (2017) recounts how the educated classes that are part of her social circles in China are fascinated with African presence in the country, and how they form their opinions and ‘racial knowledge’ about Africans mainly through the Internet.
Recent online research in China suggests that social media and the Internet are indeed critical vehicles for the dissemination of racial and national identity formation discourses (see Zhang 2019; Cheng 2011). Within these discourses, the notion of ‘race’ may be more important than previously thought. In fact, stories discussing racial issues are among the most popular and commented stories on Chinese social media and Internet fora (see Pfafman et al. 2015; Shen 2009).
Over the last five years, as Africa-China relations have moved beyond the honeymoon period and into a more complex stage, a number of incidents have exploded into global controversies about ‘race,’ ‘racism’ and racial hierarchies.
Given this context, research on ‘race’ and ‘racism’ in Africa-China relations has been scarce and fraught with methodological issues and challenges.
Dr. Roberto Castillo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. Professor Castillo is one of the world’s foremost experts on African diaspora communities in China and Africa-China racial issues. He is also the author of the popular Africans in China blog and comments regularly on Twitter about topical issues in the broader Africa-China discourse. You can follow him on Twitter @castillorocas.
