Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Yiwu: New African Trading Posts in China

Abstract

Alongside the large-scale commercial efforts that have been deployed on the African continent on the initiative of the Chinese authorities, other, more discreet dynamics have emerged from the bottomup. Indeed, a portion of the Chinese products that were until recently shipped by Chinese merchants all of the way to Africa via Dubai are today directly purchased at the source by Arab and sub-Saharan traders. The aim of this study is to shed light on the emergence of this economic system, which is contributing to the reorganization of Sino-African relations. We first reconstruct the various steps in the eastward movement of Arab and sub-Saharan merchants. Though they have neither the same demographic weight nor the same financial spread, these two groups of entrepreneurs both supply vast markets. We next describe the various figures of African traders and present the spatial reconfigurations that have been generated by their presence in the cities of Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Yiwu.