Chocolate City: African migrants head for China

Up to 1 million Chinese are estimated to currently call Africa home, but data on the number of Africans in China are scarce. Local media estimate that anything from 20 000 to 200 000 Africans traders are now living in Guangzhou alone - a town in the south of the country, which is so popular with migrants from countries such as Nigeria, Congo and Tanzania that it has been controversially dubbed the ‘Chocolate City’.

Most come to buy wholesale goods ranging from stock cubes to electrical goods, which they sell back home and in the West. The relationship is a purely economic one and cultural tensions run higher here than almost anywhere in the country. Much like the Chinese in Africa, migrants in Guangzhou tend to live in enclaves and have little social association with locals. Taxi drivers often shun African customers and openly decry the local girls who date African men. In one of the worst run-ins to date, a Nigerian man died in police custody in 2012, prompting protests by Africans across the city.