It is lunchtime, and Chiseni and his colleagues Lubinda, Chalebaila and Bright—all of them around thirty years old—are more than happy to have a Coca-Cola with us and talk about the hardships they say they suffer on a daily basis. Like Celso at the National Stadium in Maputo, their initial warm welcome is replaced by serious, almost anxious looks when they find out what has brought us here. However, they rarely get the opportunity to air their grievances, and so now they jump in with both feet. They tell us that their monthly salary for working eight-hour days, six days a week as carpenters, plumbers and painters ranges between 500,000 and 600,000 kwacha, or 70 to 85 euros.15 This represents just a fifth of the monthly income needed to sustain a Zambian family of six, according to local unions. They also have no access to insurance or accommodation, and we guess from their simple and shabby work clothes that their equipment is probably unsafe as well as insufficient. “The supervisors ask too much from us and the treatment is very aggressive, even physically aggressive. There’s a lot of tension on the site,” one of them adds. Boyd Chibale, director of research at the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW), one of the country’s two most important mining unions with 11,250 members, explains that working conditions in Chinese mines are comparatively the worst in the country.16 “The Indian, Canadian and Australian investors pay much more: at least 1.5 million kwacha per month [215 euros],” he assures us.
Even in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the British giant Anglo American—which left the country in 2002 amid fierce controversy and accusations of various misdemeanors—offered “much better” conditions than those provided by the Chinese companies today, Chibale tell us. “The Chinese have increased productivity because of the machinery and technology they have brought in. However, there is now stagnation in terms of the workers’ living standards, labor conditions and salaries. In the past, strikes, protests and riots were at a minimum, but now they’re quite common. And we’ve only ever seen workers being shot at during the era of the Chinese investors.”
The latest episode of violence in Chinese mines took place in August 2012, when workers striking at the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine staged a protest that turned violent; a Chinese supervisor was killed after being hit with a coal trolley. Employees were demanding that their pay be raised to match Zambia’s new minimum wage, which was approved earlier in the year and increases minimum salaries in the sector to $230 a month. It was not the first time that the Collum Coal Mine hit the headlines. At the end of 2010, two Chinese foremen fired indiscriminately at a crowd of miners at this mine in the south of the country who were taking part in a demonstration demanding better working conditions. The miners had to climb down a 1,000-rung ladder deep into the earth to risk their lives in extremely dangerous conditions in exchange for just four dollars a day. In a highly contentious decision, while eleven miners were still lying in hospital with bullet wounds, the courts dismissed a case that was initially going to be tried as attempted murder.17
Chiseni, Lubinda, Chalebaila and Bright give a human face to a form of twenty-first-century exploitation that seems to transport us back in time to the British Industrial Revolution. We saw the same look of powerlessness and desperation on their faces that we had seen elsewhere on our journey, faces that express the unbearable feeling of being held hostage by their Chinese bosses. Just before we said goodbye, we asked the men the same question we had put to Félix Mutati at the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation in Sharm el-Sheikh: “Is China an opportunity for the poor people of Africa? What would you think if I told you that China is here to help Zambia?” Their answer is instinctive and fierce: “Lies! … Nothing but lies!” they shout angrily, almost in unison. “Chinese propaganda!” one of them hisses, as they walk slowly away along the dusty streets of Chambishi.
KING COBRA: AN ANTI-CHINESE HERO
In terms of China’s role in the heart of Zambia’s mining industry, the difference in perception between the government minister and the workers who struggle against their Chinese employers on a daily basis—between the political and financial elites and the common people—perfectly summarizes the situation in the country. The Zambian government has placed its bets on a strategic alliance with Beijing, as it considers China the perfect traveling companion along the road of long-term development for its fabulous mining sector. Zambia hopes that the investments in its mining industry will propel Zambia towards an “African Industrial Revolution,” which is seen in Lusaka as an essential factor in helping the country to rise out of poverty. All this is no doubt caused not only by the enthusiastic reforms carried out over the last few decades, but also by Zambia’s attractive current investment framework, which has been strongly criticized for its staunchly neo-liberal leanings and which has clearly had a decisive impact on the country’s growing job insecurity. Hungry for raw materials, China has taken advantage of this situation, becoming the only foreign investor to continue investing in the Copperbelt since the financial crisis, despite the fall in the international price of copper.18
The fact that Zambia has pinned all its hopes for the future on its mining industry, and therefore on Chinese investments, has led to a situation in which Chinese investors are essentially given free rein to do whatever they like in the country’s Copperbelt. While this is demonstrated by Lusaka’s offer of tax holidays and the removal of customs duties for foreign investors, it is also particularly evident in the Zambian government’s lax attitude towards the continuous flaunting of the most basic labor standards in Chinese mines, including the dismissal of the case against the two Chinese foremen who shot and wounded their employees. “Foreign investors are very comfortable in Zambia. The unions are very active, but the government prefers to protect investors over the people,” the union leader Boyd Chibale told us during our meeting in Kitwe. While Lusaka’s dreams of wealth become a reality, 80 percent of the Copperbelt’s population live on less than two dollars a day, with Beijing’s complicity. Is this the “sacrifice” which Félix Mutati talked about that day on the shores of the Red Sea?
Chinese mining companies should not technically benefit from highly favorable treatment, but the working conditions they offer their employees—many of them on temporary contracts—are comparatively the worst in the country. This precarious employment situation, which causes suffering among some of Zambia’s poorest inhabitants, has made the companies the target of hostility. Michael Sata, the populist leader of the opposition Patriotic Front party at the time of our visit to Zambia, had pinned his presidential hopes on the use of markedly anti-Chinese discourse directed at the former government’s weakest flank. “King Cobra,” as he is known, argued that the suffering of Zambia’s miners stems from the fact that they are treated as unwelcome guests in their own country. “The Chinese enjoy corrupt [investment] conditions. When I become president, we are going to implement labor laws … If the Chinese don’t want to obey the law, they can just pack their bags and go back to China,” he told us firmly in an interview just a couple of months before the presidential elections. Sata’s diatribes against Chinese companies have made him a hero in the Copperbelt, where he counted on widespread support, and in September 2011 he won the presidential elections, becoming Zambia’s new leader.19
Is China really an opportunity for the developing world, we asked ourselves throughout the course of our travels. For better or for worse, there is no doubt that the country’s expansion has left deep marks on the countries it has affected. However, it would be unfair to play down the positive impact that this expansion has had—either directly or indirectly—on millions of people around the planet. We must not forget the thousands of jobs created, the flow of capital generated by its long-term commitments to purchase natural resources, or the new infrastructure it has built in the developing world. Equally, it would be wrong to dismiss the cheap products made in the “factory of the world” which are affordable for low-income populations, China’s multi-million-dollar investments or its aid and co-operation projects. However, as well as the
other negative factors which go hand in hand with China’s expansion—such as corruption, the total disregard for human rights, and its actions’ impact on the environment—all China’s good work is undoubtedly eclipsed by its approach to labor conditions. This factor has arguably caused the most harm to China’s image abroad, particularly because of the visibility and sensitivity of a subject that affects the poorest of the poor, as we saw for ourselves in the mines of Peru and Burma,20 the building sites of Sudan and Angola, the big infrastructure projects in Mozambique and the mining sites of Zambia’s mineral deposits.21
The Chinese companies’ casual treatment of their employees, contempt towards unions and complete lack of concern about alleviating conflict—a consequence of their stubborn, almost despotic approach to their position of power—inevitably brings to mind past colonialism in Africa, but this time with Chinese characteristics. “Common trends at Chinese businesses in Africa [included] hostile attitudes towards trade unions, various violations of workers’ rights, poor working conditions and several instances of discrimination and unfair labor practices,” a recent study into the workplace situation in Chinese companies in ten African countries concluded.22
We were therefore not surprised by the blunt conclusion of Boyd Chibale, the Kitwe union leader, when he told us that “the Chinese are ripping off lots of money and are giving back very little.” Back in Maputo, the sociologist João Feijó also struck at the foundations of the “mutually beneficial co-operation” on which Sino-African relations are based. “The Chinese companies are not doing anything for Mozambique; they’re doing it for themselves. But I don’t think the Chinese really care,” he concluded.
The description of what is really happening on the ground grates horribly against the background of Chinese official rhetoric. While the sign over the entrance to the Maputo National Stadium, in one of Africa’s poorest countries, boasts that “friendship between China and Mozambique will prevail like Heaven and Earth,” Chinese companies are not even paying their local employees enough to meet their basic needs. What is more, the salaries they pay them are six times less than those of their Chinese employees.
This troubled workplace situation, which has severely damaged China’s image in many of the affected areas, does not seem like a particularly difficult problem to solve. What is preventing these companies from handing out employment contracts, paying their employees an extra $50 per month or offering them basic medical insurance? What is stopping them from providing their workers with regulation gloves or helmets, or putting some meat or cheese inside those bread rolls? What is preventing them from treating their workers with dignity and using dialogue to improve the situation? At a first glance, it seems like an enormous miscalculation on the part of the Chinese government not to intervene more to tackle this issue, even if it does not have the capacity to reach every Chinese company operating around the world. However, perhaps the answer to these questions lies not so much in bad faith as in the labor conditions in China itself, where the millions of workers who have carried out the “Chinese miracle” are still being exploited.
Liu Guijin, the Chinese government’s special representative for Africa, admits that these problems exist and explains that Beijing—after refusing to share responsibility for supervising these companies with its media or civil society—is in over its head. “Our government is making efforts to educate the Chinese companies to properly carry out their corporate social responsibilities, to follow fixed rules or regulations and to observe local laws … But there are so many companies scattered everywhere in Africa, and we cannot guarantee that 100 percent of them are performing perfectly well.” A glance at China’s domestic situation is enough to see that, in general, these Chinese companies are simply reproducing abroad the same labor pattern that has been in force in China for the last thirty years, ever since Deng Xiaoping outlined China’s journey to wealth along the path of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” One of the driving forces behind the growth of this new model was to put the endless human resources of the planet’s most populated country to the service of the “factory of the world,” a tactic that included paying meager salaries to the workforce. It was a winning formula: low labor costs made Chinese products very competitive, contributing significantly to the fabulous increase in China’s GDP over the last three decades, an invaluable factor in the country’s development. As China became rich, pure economic logic dictates that the salaries of the workers who generated a significant part of that wealth should also have risen in proportion to their productivity. However, this explosion of wealth hasn’t filtered down through an increase in salaries.23
Here, then, is the source of the abuse; here lies the evidence that a significant part of the Chinese model’s success rests on the shoulders and tireless work of the Chinese people. Now that China is at the height of its expansion across the world, the hardships of red capitalism have become visible in Africa and other places; however, they have already been around in China for some time. Three decades later, the unscrupulous exploitation of China’s working classes is continuing and even spilling out beyond the country’s own borders.
CHINESE NEO-SLAVERY IN THE HEART OF AFRICA
Liu Jianxin and Liu Senlin are all too familiar with this state of affairs. That was why these two men decided to set off on a new adventure abroad, without a word of French between them. Their destination was Gabon on the West Africa coast, their task was to build a road through the center of the country, and their reward was a salary three times greater than they could earn in China. However, the dream soon turned into a nightmare, and their African adventure almost ended in suicide. Liu Jianxin was not new to Africa: he had previously worked as a steamroller driver for a Chinese state-owned company in Nigeria and Zambia. His friend, Liu Senlin, was something of a road-building veteran himself and felt he had nothing to fear from a journey to Africa. He had already faced up to the reality of a shattered Iraq in 1991 after the first Gulf War, when he had traveled to the Arab country to pave roads. However, this time both of them found themselves unprepared for what awaited them. They arrived in Gabon to work for a Chinese construction company and just a few months later they were forced to desert the camp to escape from the slavery to which they and their workmates were being subjected. That was just the beginning of an odyssey that would see them having to flee from the thugs that their boss had sent after them and beg to survive in the heart of Africa.
Our first contact with the men was by telephone in 2010. They were in Gabon, and we were in Beijing. That was when they told us their story. It had all started in 2009. Liu Jianxin arrived in Gabon in July and his colleague arrived in December. “Straightaway I saw that the conditions were going to be difficult, even inhuman. We had to share a 90-centimeter single bed with another colleague, we weren’t paid for working overtime and we were only given two days off each year,” the younger of the two Lius explained. There were roughly forty workers at the camp, all of them Chinese. Half of them had family ties to the head of the company, Lei Youbin, while the rest of them mostly came from the Chinese province of Hubei, where an advert in the local paper, Chutian Dushibao, had offered a monthly salary of 1,000 euros—a fortune in rural China—in return for helping to build a road. However, in reality they had to work like dogs for endless hours under a punishing sun. Some local men also took part in the work, although only as temporary extra workers. On the other end of the telephone line, the men sounded pleasant and polite. They were even glad to have had the chance to appreciate the beauty of the sea for the first time in their lives.
Two months later, back in China, we met them at our Beijing office along with two of their workmates—Ru Liyin and Li Gao24—who had suffered the same ill treatment at the hands of Aolong, the private Chinese company in question. The company had been subcontracted by the state-owned China Communication Construction Company (CCCC) to build a stretch of the 112-kilometer motorway between the towns of Fougamou and Mouila in central Gabon. The bleakness of th
e workers’ description of events, as well as their desperate appearance of men who had lost everything, brought a lump to our throats. “They fed us rotten rice. We were working for fourteen hours or more each day. They didn’t pay us the salary stipulated in our contracts. We were slaves. That’s what our boss told us and that’s how we felt.” The words of Liu Senlin sounded devastating in the mouth of a Chinese man, accustomed as they are to suffering unspeakable hardships without a word of complaint. Sitting around a large wooden table, his colleagues nodded silently, hanging their heads, clearly angry and hurt by the injustice they had suffered.
After the first month of work, the promised salary never arrived.25 The company paid part of their wages, but most of the money was held back under the pretext of delays in the company’s billing system. The situation got worse in the second and third months, when the workers still did not receive the income they had been promised in their contract. “After the fourth month, we decided to pack it in. Three colleagues and I decided to resign.” Convinced that it was time to put an end to their African adventure, the men all handed in their notice. “We were called one by one into the boss’s office. The first to go in was Wang, one of our workmates. Half an hour later, he came staggering out after taking a beating. I was next. Several men hit me while the boss watched. It lasted for about ten minutes,” Liu Senlin explains, as he shows us the marks left on his body by the attack. The two Lius decided to make a run for it. It was on April 18, 2010.
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