Abstract
In this rich and timely ethnography, sociologist Ching Kwan Lee addresses burgeoning Chinese investment in Africa. She contests the taken-for-granted idea that Chinese capital in Africa represents a rehashing of the continent’s history of foreign imperialism and colonialism. Chinese capital in Africa, Lee argues, is distinctive notbecause it is Chinese per se, but because it is a form of state, rather than private, capital. It pursues what Lee calls “profit optimization” rather than “profit maximization.” Comparative case studies of state-owned Chinese firms versus foreign private firms operating in Zambia’s copper and construction industries provide evidence for this thesis. There are multiple and important implications for states and workers. “[T]hese two types of capital [state and private] came to Zambia with different imperatives of accumulation, driving them to different regimes of production” (p. 28).
The Specter of Global Chinais firmly grounded in the extended case method of global ethnography introduced and developed in the United States by Michael Burawoy. Indeed, Burawoy himself performed fieldwork in the Zambian copper industry during the late 1960s, shortly after the country had achieved independence (see his 1972 book, The Colour of Class on the Copper Mines). Like Burawoy, Lee casts a wide net of methods in pursuit of her theoretical questions. These include spending time underground, visiting workers’ housing compounds, interviewing government officials, and attending union meetings. An accessible and honest methodological appendix describes Lee’s fieldwork journey from start to finish.
In many ways, The Specter of Global Chinacan be read as a “revisit” of Burawoy’s study. During the early 1970s, the issue was that of the Zambian government wresting control of the mining industry from global conglomerates such as the Anglo American Corporation. (Burawoy was especially interested in the unintended consequences of the state’s “Zambianization” policy for mining personnel.) Over the following decades, neoliberal restructuring put control of the copper mines back into the hands of foreign firms. Lee in turn documents how the Chinese state, through a range of state owned enterprises, has become a significant new force in Zambian society today.
After an opening chapter in which Lee argues for a “varieties of capital” (as opposed to a “varieties of capitalism”) approach, Chapter 2, “Varieties of Accumulation” argues that China’s decision to “go out” to Zambia (and indeed, much of the world) was driven by “excess capacity, resource security, falling profit rates, and potential social instability arising from a faltering economy” (p. 10). As a result, for Chinese capital in Africa making profits is only one among several related imperatives, or goals. Building political influence with foreign governments (especially regarding the question of Taiwan) and securing steady flows of key raw materials (such as copper) are as if not more important. Significantly, differences between Chinese state capital and global private capital are not found in the construction industry, buttressing Lee’s argument that it is capital’s interest in a particular sector rather than capital’s nationality that determines its strategies on the ground.
One key outcome of the Chinese state’s multifaceted imperatives is its willingness (relative to global private capital) to grant concessions to the Zambian state and labor. Chapter 3, “Labor Bargains,” shows that Chinese mining capital adopts “an ore-driven producer orientation.” It is more willing to invest in exploration and development than is private capital, which evaluates such decisions with a “finance-driven trader orientation.” Chinese state capital is more likely to grant employees multiyear employment contracts and less likely to lay them off during downturns. Chapter 4, “Managerial Ethos,” argues that it is on-site foreign managers who translate the broader imperatives of capital into specific production regimes. Chinese managers in Zambia live ascetic lives of “eating bitterness,” while global private managers engage in “individual careerism.” I have to say that for me this was the least satisfying chapter, as the conceptual pathways connecting managers in Zambia to their firms’ headquarters in distant locales were not fully explicated. One gets the feeling that these ex-pat managers deserve a book of their own.
In Chapter 5, “Contesting Capital,” Lee shows why she is one of the world’s foremost authorities on workers’ mobilizations and struggles. As wave after wave of capital investment has swept through Zambia’s copper industry, “miners have developed a distinct perspective about their interest as opposed to the ‘national interest’” (p. 124). Today, they pursue their interest through theft, political activism, and, most effectively, the disruption of production. The Specter of Global Chinaconcludes with a chapter arguing that China’s “going out” constitutes an important event in the history of capitalism, one whose antecedents can be described empirically but whose consequences remain unspecifiable in advance. As a whole, this book is itself an event in the field of labor studies and globalization. It exemplifies global ethnography at its finest.