Migration to China will never be the same after COVID-19. The health crisis and its consequences will severely impact on local, translocal, and transnational forms of migration. Once COVID-19 ceases to be a threat, foreigners in China will face a new regime of mobility characterized by artificial intelligence-based surveillance technologies.
In a post-pandemic China, there will be little or no room for the irregular forms of migration, mobility, and abode that have made possible the existence of thriving African communities in the Pearl River Delta region.