Passing the odd Chinese restaurant here and there while backpacking your way through urban Central America should not come as any great shock. However, when you have just trekked through the deep rainforests of Guatemala and you find yourself in a small and dusty one-cantina two-house town, a “Fong’s Cantonese restaurant” is the last thing you would expect to see.
Only a fool would bet on there not being a trusty Chinese restaurant around the next corner, waiting with garlic breath and ready to serve you that faithful sweet and sour pork or chicken chow mein.
It seems that wherever one goes in the world, a Cantonese eatery will be there. Everywhere? Plainly everywhere! Frankly, it would not come as a surprise if there were even a Chinese restaurant on the moon. Put to the test in our biosphere, it was revealed that the following places all had thriving Chinese restaurants (in abundance):
Poverty struck Malawi
Remote Antananarivo, Madagascar and Yakutsk, Siberia
War torn Damascus, Syria
Far out Nadi, Fiji
Desolate Manshiyat Naser, Egypt
With the humble Chinese restaurant being literally everywhere, it therefore suggests that the humble Chinese are literally everywhere themselves too.
World over there are more than 50 million overseas Chinese. “Overseas Chinese” are people of Chinese birth or descent who live beyond the borders of the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Maca, collectively known as 海外华人 (Haiwai Huaren).
Vast waves of “Chinese Diaspora” (overseas Chinese) are what have caused such staggering numbers of emigration across the planet. Of notability, the biggest were the early 1900s and the Second World War. Yet another wave of “Haiwai Huaren” are rolling their way abroad as I write this article. They come in the form of the newly rich and adventurous; this time though in search of living space, education and property.
Generally the Chinese have never made a fuss or intruded too much into their host countries cultures or customs, mainly sticking to themselves and minding their own business. These days with China becoming a world super power and her people becoming too rich to handle, they are starting to make a name for themselves and stick out a little more internationally.
While China’s ultra rich enjoy gallivanting in luxurious places flaunting their wealth abroad, its government and businessmen are flexing muscles in assailable places, getting in while the goings cheap and taking advantage wherever opportunity lies.
China’s involvement in Africa is becoming more and more evident as the years pass. Writing for the China Africa Project, Eric Olander notes, “From Algeria to Angola, the Chinese population across Africa is growing rapidly… Out of sheer necessity, they are often highly assimilated in both language and culture”.
Elsewhere, Frederick Kuo for National Interest writes, “China’s trade with Africa topped $160 billion in 2015, ranking as far and away the largest trade partner with the continent. In 2014, China signed more than $70 billion in infrastructure contracts in the continent, and Chinese banks now provide more loans to African nations than does the World Bank… Africa is becoming the next great frontier for development and economic opportunity”.
Stern debate over China’s involvement in Africa has enthralled Western media for some time, with controversy raging over whether China’s involvement in Africa is that of pure economic interest or a more ominous form of recolonialism.
“The answer to this question lies with how China has essentially treated Africa, not as a continent in need of saving or lecturing, but as partners in a long-term business deal. Exhibiting no self-appointed missionary zeal, China has approached African states with an amoral and persuasive message based on mutual benefit”, continued Kuo, whoe then went on to say, “In this way, China treats Africa with far more dignity than Western governments and NGOs, who view the Africans as hopeless children who need guidance”.
Leaving the USA alone to fight its battles in the world of oil control, China has been hard at work investing in and making deals with the rest of the world. “China’s role has become more prominent in addressing Middle East issues. Xi’s proposal to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road will help restore and stabilize its economy”, epoused The People’s Daily.
The paper also went on to say, “The three destinations chosen by Xi; Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, are the most influential states in the Middle East, according to analysts, they all maintain close ties with China in political trust and economy”.
Alongside China, Latin America is becoming the next buzzword in world politics and economics. Author of “China’s Presence in Latin America”, Francois Lafargue says, “For half a century, the People’s Republic of China took only limited note of Latin America, a region over which the United States exercised real political and economic hegemony”.
Writing for International Viewpoint, Virginia de la Siega states, “bilateral trade between China and Latin America has been expanding significantly since November 2004, when China’s president Hu Jintao promised to invest $100bn in the region”. She also says, “It [China] has strengthened its diplomatic presence and economic influence, often referred to as “soft power”, in the developing world, specifically in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia”.
China is, for certain, becoming a stronghold in the world of economics, take BRIC (Brazil Russia India and China) for example, whereby a prediction was made estimating that by 2050 these combined economies will become the strongest in the world. BRIC goes to show China has no intention of slowing down or losing out.
Siega also stated, “The PRC has defined two strategies for Latin America. The first is economic; to secure China’s access to the primary materials that it needs for its economic growth and to find a market for its manufactured goods. The second strategy is mainly political; to obtain diplomatic acceptance from those countries still recognising Taiwan as the government of China”.
While this involvement in developing countries has mostly been welcomed, some of it has been met with hostility. Take the recent situation in Nicaragua where a Chinese businessman with no prior experience in the field of making canals signed a deal with Nicaragua’s corrupt government in order to build a great canal that connects the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, one set to rival Panama’s existing canal. The planned shipping route was designed to run straight through the country. Scientists and the Nicaraguan people were up in arms over the project as it threatened to disrupt its natural eco system, publically demonstrating on numerous occasions a growing distrust of the Chinese.
Former Mexican ambassador to China, Jorge Guajardo said to Bloomberg magazine, “The enthusiasm over China has no base in reality, the Chinese throw out big numbers but seldom deliver. Their financing comes with conditions that countries seldom like and usually displaces local suppliers. I told them, ‘We’ve been colonised before’”.
In another Western debate, this time over China and Latin America, some are of the opinion that China is exploiting cheap labour, cheap access to natural resources and taking advantage of countries in dire straits (such as present Venezuela). Talk of China undermining the US and buying up Latin America has also sparked discussion and some anxiety over China’s real intentions.
Ambitious projects such as the Nicaraguan Canal and a train system that is intended to stretch 3,300 miles across South America are just two examples of what China has in mind for Latin America. “Latin Americans’ view that a stronger China relationship does not have to preclude the United States from advancing its own relations. Rather, Chinese involvement can provide an avenue for all parties to collaborate in the shared goals of economic growth and social progress in the hemisphere,” writes Adrienne Arsht of the Atlantic Council.
The Chinese, it would appear, are done with dominating the Cantonese restaurant scene and are onto greater and more demanding game play. The difficulties they face nowadays are the existing complications of the countries with which they are getting themselves involved. Former NIS (Nanjing International School) teacher Ms. Jillian Eyre-Walker who now resides in Tanzania says, “They are here to set up businesses and large companies that supply goods from China. At the moment they are here creating a second shipping port. However, the way China and Africa think are very different; therein lies the problem”.
Once upon a time, Western countries sent over to China their brightest engineers in order to help sculpt, structure and nurture her back into the modern world. Now that China is in the position that she is, it seems it is her turn to send out her best, brightest and richest in order to wheel, deal and appeal in the world’s up and coming nations. And you can bet that in the future it shall not just be China’s trademark “Fong’s Cantonese” set in every nook and cranny of the realm as a small reminder to what has yet to come.
This article was first published in The Nanjinger Magazine, September 2016 issue. If you would like to read the whole magazine, please follow this link.
