In 2010, China passed the United States to become Africa's largest trading partner. That fall, Xi Jinping traveled to South Africa, Angola, and Botswana, and China's Commerce Ministry also created a new trade-focused think tank, the China-Africa Research Center. Much attention so far has focused on large infrastructure and resource extraction projects undertaken by Chinese state-owned corporations, but another slice of the exchange is the import of manufactured goods into Africa, much of it arranged by informal trading networks that run through Guangzhou.
"Your Beauty is Our Duty," announced a sign outside one Tianxiu wig shop, which sold "real human hair" clipped in India and Brazil and elaborately plated ($9.50 for a full wig; $4 for braided extensions). Several shops carried embroidered gandora, the long gowns worn in North Africa ($3.65 each, minimum order of 200). One sold made-to-order soccer jerseys; a green sample jersey with the insignia, "Nigeria Football Federation Abudja," hung on on display ($4 each, minimum order of 100). Helpfully, one shop also organized deliveries via EMS Worldwide Express Mail Service and booked plane tickets on Ethiopian Air, Emirates, Qatar Airlines, and Kenya Airways. For reference, large maps of Africa with place names printed in Chinese hung in the hallways.
A decade ago, The Economist labeled Africa "the hopeless continent," but last December it ran an article headlined "The sun shines bright: The continent's impressive growth looks likely to continue." As a 2010 McKinsey report noted, urbanization is a big driver of growth: In 1980, 28 percent of Africans lived in cities; today 40 percent do. In the next decade, McKinsey projects that the number of households with discretionary income will double. But Africa's consumer demand is growing much faster than its manufacturing output, just 2.5 percent of the world's total; the lack of infrastructure and other barriers mean few large new factories are popping up, and so for the foreseeable future, Africa's mobile phones and football jerseys will continue to come from places like Guangzhou.
But it's not only Africans managing the trading.
From his window on the 30th floor of an office building in central Guangzhou, Fu Ruiqiang looks down through the smog on another endless snarl of traffic. He grew up here, in one of China's most bustling cities, but now finds the congestion and pollution oppressive. "I can't wait to get back to Africa," he says when I visit. Fu is wearing an orange North Face jacket over a red-checked flannel shirt, brown cargo pants, and hiking boots, and seated behind an enormous desk that dwarfs his skinny frame. Outside his door, a carved wooden placard reads "Karibu," which in Kenyan means "Welcome."
Fu is the top overseas sales rep for an electronics company, Leadder, founded in 2001 by his older brother; their factories are in nearby Shenzhen. For the last five years, he has spent about six months of each year trekking to visit potential customers in more than 30 African countries: Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Congo, Togo, Cameroon, Burkina, Benin, and Gabon among them. At 27, he thinks it's a dream job: "The ocean is green, just like jewelry, and the sky is always blue. In Africa, the clouds are very low, almost like you can touch them ... Here in Guangzhou, there is just so much traffic and noise, and almost never a blue sky."
Moving between China and Africa has gotten easier. "Maybe 10 years ago, I would have had to transit via Paris," Fu reflects. "But since 2003 or 2004, Ethiopian Airlines has opened a direct flight to China, also Emirates and Kenya Airlines." He rattles off information about familiar routes: "Now China Southern and Hainan Airlines operate direct flights from Guangzhou and Hong Kong to Lagos, Sudan, and Johannesburg."
In five years, he's already seen the market evolve: "Africa is developing faster now -- before, if you had any goods, Africans would accept them. But things have begun to change, people begin to understand quality. They don't want fake goods. They want guarantees, warranties, higher quality." Technology changes are significant, too: "In 2007, a cell phone was very expensive; most people could not afford it. But today, now even a child can buy one for 200 RMB."
He pauses, as though recalling a specific place in his mind, which cause him to reflect on something else with a burst of indignant emotion: He's also seen in Africa that "many poor men can't afford to buy food; the village is the village. But the rich men are very rich: Villas, private swimming pools, cars, TVs, laptops ..." This disparity upsets him.
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