On the edge of the Chinese diaspora: The surge of baihuo business in an African city

On the edge of the Chinese diaspora:

The surge of baihuo business in an

African city

Heidi Østbø Haugen and Jørgen Carling

Abstract

Since the first Chinese shop opened in Cape Verde in 1995, this remotearchipelago has experienced a wave of Chinese entrepreneurial immigra-tion that has transformed local retail and significantly affected people’spurchasing power. During this process, Chinese migrants have seen profitmargins fall and now complain that there are too many Chinese in CapeVerde. This article explores the migration dynamics that have character-ized the pioneer phase of Chinese immigration, and the migrants’understanding of their own position in relation to the Chinese diaspora.Furthermore, it discusses how the characteristics of the local economyand the resources of the Chinese migrants have interacted to form thebasis for Chinese settlement. The article examines the process of marketsaturation, and relates responses to market saturation to a conceptualframework developed on the basis of literature on Chinese migration toEurope and the former Soviet Union.

Keywords: Cape Verde; Chinese diaspora; Africa; entrepreneurship; migration;

social organization.

Introduction

‘If there is a market, we will of course go to any place,’ says a youngChinese woman, contemplating onward migration. She was an un-fortunate late entrant in the rush of Chinese entrepreneurs to theisland state of Cape Verde, West Africa. After a few boom years, themarket is now saturated. The edge of the Chinese diaspora, with itsup-and-coming Chinese niche markets, already lies elsewhere.

This article provides an analysis of how Cape Verde’s second largestcity, Sao Vicente, was filled with Chinese shops over the course of afew years. The social and economic dynamics of this process are

Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 28 No. 4 July 2005 pp. 639�/662

# 2005 Taylor & Francis Group LtdISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 onlineDOI: 10.1080/01419870500092597

context-specific, and the number of people involved is small. However,the Cape Verdean case exemplifies the new entrepreneurial migrationfrom China, which during the past fifteen years has reached countlessplaces off the beaten track in a search for markets still unconquered byother Chinese, from the Marshall Islands and Kamchatka to thevillages of Romania. While most researchers have devoted theirattention to the numerically more important concentrations of over-seas Chinese in Southeast Asia, North America and Europe, theChinese diaspora’s extension to remote places across the globe is anintriguing and distinctive characteristic that merits attention. Chineseentrepreneurial migration also differs from the South-to-Northmigration flows that dominate migration research.

In our analysis, we shall focus on the intertwined social andeconomic processes through which the local market in Cape Verdewas saturated, and on migrants’ responses to market saturation. Thearticle will examine these responses with reference to a typologydeveloped from research on recent entrepreneurial migration to Centraland Eastern Europe, which is the sector of the recent entrepreneurialmigration that has received most substantial academic attention.

The recent surge of Chinese immigration to Cape Verde started in1995, when the first Chinese shop opened in the capital, Praia. TheCape Verdeans call these shops loja chines, ‘Chinese shops’, while theChinese migrants use the term ‘baihuo shops’, baihuo meaning‘general merchandise’. Because these shops have special characteristicsin addition to being Chinese, we shall use the term ‘baihuo shops’rather than ‘Chinese shops’ in this article.

Cape Verde was apparently not a destination in Chinese migrationflows within the Portuguese colonial empire. Since long before the firstbaihuo shop opened, however, Asian sailors have occasionally passedthrough the harbour of Sao Vicente. Korean, Japanese and Chinesefishing boats regularly called for maintenance at the shipyard, andtheir crews generated sufficient demand to enable a Chinese restaurantto stay in business from the late 1980s until 2002. China was amongthe first countries to open an embassy in Cape Verde after the countrygained its independence in 1975, and a small number of embassyofficials have been present since then. Only with the growth of thebaihuo business in the late 1990s, however, was there a sharp increasein the number of Chinese residents. Today, the number probably standsat between 200 and 300 people. While this is minute in the context ofthe Chinese diaspora, it is sufficiently large to have had a momentousimpact on the society and economy of Cape Verde. There are nowbaihuo shops in every urban centre in the country; on certain streets inthe centres of the country’s two cities, virtually every second establish-ment is a baihuo shop.

640 Heidi Østbø Haugen and Jørgen Carling

The majority of the Chinese in Cape Verde come from the regionof Wenzhou in the southern part of Zhejiang province, situated onthe coast to the south of Shanghai. This region has a long historyof emigration, especially to Europe (Pieke 1998; Li Minghuan1999; Thunø 1999). While emigration pressure persists in the inlandvillages, it has subsided in the city of Wenzhou with the rapideconomic development in recent years. The early Chinese migrantsin Cape Verde included people from Shanghai, Beijing, and a fewother cities, but these have now been completely outnumbered bythe Wenzhounese, who have multiplied rapidly through chain migra-tion.

This article is based on fieldwork in Cape Verde in 2002 and2003, conducted partly in Mandarin Chinese and partly in CapeVerdean Creole (Kriol). Our data are a combination of transcriptsfrom recorded interviews and notes from participant observationamong the Chinese immigrants. We also interviewed Cape Verdeanworkers in Chinese shops, local shop owners and governmentofficials. Access to the field was facilitated by the fact that mostChinese shopkeepers spend days on end sitting in their shops andwelcome any diversion from their everyday boredom. Our fieldworkwas also eased by the relaxed nature of the relationship between theChinese immigrants and the Cape Verdean government and thelocal population. However, increasing competition among theChinese has contributed to apprehensive and sceptical attitudes,also towards outsiders. This constituted a prohibitive barrier tosystematic data collection through forms or questionnaires. Re-corded interviews, by contrast, were agreed to by all but a couple ofinformants.

Our fieldwork was mainly conducted in Cape Verde’s secondlargest urban centre, on the island of Sao Vicente. The city �/

formally called Mindelo, but generally referred to as Sao Vicente�/ has close to 70,000 inhabitants and developed around a harbourthat was once a node in Atlantic shipping. Today, Sao Vicente’seconomy has partly stagnated in the shadow of the rapidly growingcapital city, Praia. Despite the economic differences between the twocities, Chinese business activities appear to be similar in terms oftheir functioning and challenges in both cities. A principaldifference, however, is that the Chinese embassy in Praia providesan institutional setting for social interaction, which Sao Vicentelacks. Through interviews with Chinese migrants who currently orformerly lived on other islands, we also acquired information aboutChinese businesses in other parts of the country.

On the edge of the Chinese diaspora 641

New entrepreneurial migration

Emigration from China has grown to unprecedented levels since theonset of reforms in 1978 and the liberalization of emigrationlegislation in 1985 (Pieke 1998; Xiang 2003). There has been aheterogeneous migration flow to different parts of the world. Aconspicuous component has been what can be called the newentrepreneurial migration .1 The migrants concerned do not enterestablished wage-labour markets in existing communities of overseasChinese but set up their own businesses most commonly engaged inthe retail or wholesale of Chinese goods, Chinese restaurants ortraditional Chinese clinics. This migration flow also includes workerswho are not entrepreneurs themselves but who work for relatives andoften aspire to become self-employed in the same line of business.

The new Chinese entrepreneurial migration has often moved in theopposite direction of other migration flows. During the 1990s, at theheight of political and media attention to migration pressure fromEastern Europe on the West, there was both legal and illegal migrationof Chinese traders into Eastern Europe from the West �/ even fromJapan and the United States (International Organization for Migra-tion 1998; Nyıri 2003). In the Russian Far East, thousands of Chinesehave entered areas that generally experience heavy out-migration(de Tinguy 1998). The same is true of Cape Verde and the Pacificislands.

The establishment of migrant communities in the transitioneconomies of the former Soviet Union and Central and EasternEurope was made possible by periods of liberal visa policies(de Tinguy 1998; Nyıri 1998; Moore and Tubilewicz 2001). Whilesuch policies allowed this new migration to take place, it was driven toa large extent by the market characteristics of the economiesthemselves. The migrants’ access to low-cost Chinese goods enabledthem to satisfy a demand for clothes, shoes and other consumer goodsat prices affordable to the majority of consumers (de Tinguy 1998;Nyıri 2003; Thunø 2003).

In the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, Chinesetraders found the two requirements for success in the baihuo trade: agreat demand for goods that are cheaper than those already on themarket, although inferior in quality or style, and few barriers tomarket entry in the form of business regulations and requirements forcapital and knowledge. Attentive to such opportunities, Chineseentrepreneurs have also been quick to establish themselves in thepostwar economies of Sarajevo, Luanda and, most recently, Kabul.Many South Pacific island states have also seen a substantial influx ofChinese entrepreneurial migrants in recent years. Local businessleaders express concern about the gradual Chinese domination of


local commerce, and several governments have responded by restrict-ing immigration.

Some parts of Africa have also received new entrepreneurialmigrants from China. Almost 90 per cent of the continent’s Chineseare concentrated in four countries with sizeable, longstanding com-munities, but the remaining 10 per cent spread out over more thanthirty countries (Li Anshan 1999).2 These include large numbers ofrecently immigrated independent entrepreneurs engaged in the baihuobusiness, Chinese medicine, restaurants or import/export businesses.

The places that provide superior business opportunities do notnecessarily offer high-quality living environments. Whether places aredesirable as migration destinations depends on the situation of theChinese migrants. If possible, a Chinese family may try to takeadvantage of this variety by diversifying its migration strategy. Forinstance, Nyıri (2003) writes about a family that shares its timebetween China, Hungary and the United States. While the UnitedStates offers the best education and is a good place to which to retire,Hungary allows Chinese to be their own bosses and earn substantialamounts of money.

Responses to market saturation

The saturation of ‘Chinese’ market niches has been a common featureof Chinese migration to different parts of the world. This applies notonly to the new entrepreneurial migration but also to the postwarmigration of Chinese to Western Europe, which was closely connectedwith the expansion of the Chinese catering trade. Saturation occurswhen the number of suppliers in a given business at a given locationgrows out of proportion to the demand, and most suppliers suffer adecline in profits to critical levels. The widespread pattern of growththrough copying existing enterprises often creates a rigid and isolatedindustry that is ill-prepared for saturation. For instance, Pieke andBenton (1998, p. 145) describe how the Chinese catering business inThe Netherlands grew rapidly from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s,but without menu, decor and management changes or other qualita-tive improvements.

Once saturation occurs, businesses can respond in several ways.Table 1 presents a typology of responses to market saturation, basedon the recent history of Chinese entrepreneurial migration to Europe.The four categories overlap and are not mutually exclusive. Theresponses described are not only actions undertaken by incumbentsuppliers but also show how a continuous flow of immigration can beabsorbed in new ways, possibly without substantial shifts on the partof established immigrants.


A common solution to market saturation is geographical expansion .Spatial diffusion at different geographical scales has been a recurrentelement in the recent history of Chinese entrepreneurial migration toEurope. In postwar Western Europe, the Chinese restaurant businessspread from the United Kingdom, to The Netherlands, and later toBelgium, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal (Pieke1998). Within each country, there was often diffusion from major citiesto towns and villages. In Eastern Europe, the wave of entrepreneurialmigration had its origins in the Russian Far East around 1987, andsubsequently spread to European Russia and Hungary (de Tinguy1998; Nyıri 2003). From there, the Chinese trade in shoes and clothesspread to most of Eastern Europe, starting with Romania and theCzech Republic. Within Hungary, Chinese shops spread from themajor cities to remote villages, and within Budapest from blue-collardistricts to attractive locations in the inner city (Nyıri 1998, 2003).Given the speed at which markets are saturated, the suppliers are oftenrecent migrants without firm attachments to the locality. Migrantswho consider their own migration to be temporary may be more readyto change location than to change business, even after many years ofresidence.

Opportunities for geographical expansion are, of course, condi-tioned by the existence of alternative locations. The attractiveness of alocation depends on the local demand for Chinese goods and the

Table 1. A typology of responses to market saturation

Samebusiness

Samelocation

Existingconcept

Requiredresources

Examples

Geographicalexpansion

Yes No Yes Accessibleregions withunsaturatedmarkets

Textile trade fromRussia throughEastern Europe(1980s�/1990s)

Price wars Yes Yes (Yes) Price-cuttingpotential,docile labourpower

Restaurants inDenmark andThe Netherlands(1970s�/1980s)

Sectoralexpansion

No (Yes) Yes Information,capital, skills,networks

From restaurantsto shops in theCzech Republicand Spain (1990s)

Innovation Yes Yes No Information,capital, skills,networks

Restaurants inThe Netherlands,Denmark andNorway(1980s�/1990s)


existing supply. Where the prospective expansion is international, ahost of additional factors comes into consideration. In most parts ofthe world, immigration policy is a key issue. In Eastern Europe,differences in immigration policy and the financial and bureaucraticobstacles to market entry have influenced the direction and timing ofdiffusion. The need to learn a new language can also weigh heavily ondecisions about whether and where to relocate.

A second response to market saturation is price war �/ retaining thesame business concept but cutting costs in ways that may or may notbe innovative. Price wars require reduced profit margins and/or severecost-cutting. Cost cuts are often made possible by increased relianceon family labour or other reductions in labour costs. At the height ofthe crisis in the Chinese catering sector in The Netherlands, forinstance, the average number of employees in Chinese restaurants wascut from 4.6 to 2.7 over a five-year period (Pieke and Benton 1998). Inaddition to reducing the number of workers, restaurant owners couldcut costs by employing illegal immigrants and people registered asunemployed. The social context of Chinese migration is also sig-nificant: the well-established pattern of chain migration meant thatrecent immigrants were often willing to put up with appalling workingconditions in the hope that one day they would become independententrepreneurs.

Third, the saturation of a market niche has led to expansion intoother business sectors. More often than not, people have moved fromone ‘Chinese’ niche to another, with catering, trade in Chineseconsumer goods and Chinese traditional medicine being the principalsectors. In the Czech Republic and in Spain, saturation of the Chineserestaurant market was followed by a shift into trading in low-costChinese goods (Moore and Tubilewicz 2001; Nieto 2003). In EasternEurope, the saturation of these two markets was followed by expansioninto traditional medicine, as well as services aimed at the Chinesecommunity and the export of local products and raw materials toChina (International Organization for Migration 1998, p. 328; Mooreand Tubilewicz 2001). A change of sector sometimes necessitates achange of location. Sectoral expansion could be inhibited at theindividual level by the need for capital or for business-specificinformation, skills or networks. In many cases, migration chains areconfined to one line of business, with skills and information beingpassed on through apprenticeships and family networks.

Finally, some entrepreneurs have responded to market saturation byimplementing innovative changes that give them an edge over co-ethniccompetitors. Such innovations have taken place in the Chinese cateringbusiness in The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, where someentrepreneurs have successfully adapted to increasingly discriminatingcustomers (Thunø 1996, 1998; Pieke and Benton 1998; Krogstad


2004). Of all the responses to market saturation, this is the mostchallenging. The investment and risk can be substantial, and therequirements for market sensitivity are often prohibitive for migrantswho, although engaging in entrepreneurial migration, are principally‘migrants’ and coincidentally ‘entrepreneurs’.

On the edge of the Chinese diaspora

A critique of prevailing conceptualizations of the Chinese diaspora hasbeen made by authors such as Adam McKeown (1999) and Ien Ang(2001). With reference to ongoing theoretical debates about transna-tionalism and diaspora, they discuss how the category of Chinesenessimposes a closure on the identity of people of Chinese ancestry. Thoseresisting the closure define one type of periphery of the Chinesediaspora. The fringes of the Chinese diaspora are identified in anothersense by the way in which the Chinese in Sao Vicente positionthemselves and their businesses in a spatial and temporal perspective.These Chinese traders present a worldview in which good business isfound on the edge of an ever-expanding diaspora, in a zone of pristinemarkets in which Chinese business niches have yet to be saturated.Obviously, a place with few Chinese offers better opportunities than aplace with many, and a place where Chinese have recently settled isbetter than one with a long history of Chinese immigration. When thefirst baihuo shops opened in Cape Verde in the mid-1990s, the countryoffered a rare combination of political stability, security and high pricelevels. The competition at the low end of the market was insignificantwhile local purchasing power was relatively high due to the remittanceswhich many Cape Verdeans receive from relatives abroad. In the past,many emigrants sent remittances in kind because of the limited localsupply of goods, but the emergence of baihuo shops brought about ashift towards giving money. Today, however, the competition betweenthe Chinese in Cape Verde is fierce and their profit levels have becomesharply reduced. The success and failure of individual shop ownersdepends largely on when they arrived with respect to the wave ofChinese immigration.

Despite the shortcomings of Cape Verde, most of the Chineseentrepreneurs did not see Europe as being better in terms ofopportunity. Many of the Chinese in Cape Verde have close relativesin Europe and therefore have not only first-hand information but alsothe necessary contacts to make onward migration a realistic option.However, they were reluctant to move to Europe because ofexploitative employment conditions and a difficult business climate.The shop owners greatly appreciated the freedom and control theyhave in Cape Verde, and contrasted this with what they had heardabout Europe. As one girl put it, ‘In Europe there have been Chinese


running businesses for sixty years, so it’s hard to manage’. Further-more, the Chinese in Cape Verde appreciated the respect they enjoyeddue to their economic position. ‘Chinese in Cape Verde are seen ashaving a good economy, so people will not look down upon you,’ onewoman said. ‘But if you go to Europe you will be in the lowest socialstratum. Yellow people and black people are put in the same category.They do the dirty work.’

While Europe was seen as too mature in the context of the Chinesediaspora, mainland Africa was seen as a challenging but up-and-coming market. Most Chinese in Cape Verde know some Portugueseor Kriol, and therefore would prefer the Portuguese-speaking coun-tries of Angola and Mozambique if they were to move to themainland. However, crime, political instability and bureaucraticobstacles make many of the Chinese in Sao Vicente hesitant to ventureinto the mainland. In the meantime, they gather information ondifferent countries of emigration. During our fieldwork, we werefrequently asked if we had information about the number of Chineseor other market characteristics of different African countries andcities. Eager to be the first to exploit a new market, a recently arrivedChinese person in Sao Vicente exclaimed: ‘If you can find us a countrywhich is rich and has no Chinese, we can cooperate to open a shop andearn a lot of money!’

The baihuo business in Cape Verde

Chinese shops in Cape Verde are strikingly identical at first sight. Atthe end of 2003, there were twenty-seven Chinese shops in Sao Vicente,of which twenty-six were baihuo shops and one was a hardwarespecialist. Every baihuo shop sells Chinese clothes, shoes, travelaccessories, knick-knacks, kitchenware and framed pictures withmotives ranging from Chinese pin-ups to romantic landscapes andthe Virgin Mary. About half also sell consumer electronics such astelevision sets and tape recorders. Toys are a seasonal product thatevery shop stocks in the Christmas period, but not necessarilythroughout the year. The selection of goods is similar to that of theChinese retail trade in Central and Eastern Europe (InternationalOrganization for Migration 1998). The goods are cheap, and theirquality is often poor. Most Chinese shop owners in Sao Vicente go toChina at least once a year to import goods to sell in their shops. Theydo almost all their purchases at the enormous wholesale markets in thecity of Yiwu. Each item is bought in quantities of a few hundred, andshipped in containers to Cape Verde via The Netherlands. Typically,goods have to be sold in Cape Verde at more than three times theiroriginal price to cover the costs of transportation, import duties andoperating costs.


In some respects, there were substantial differences behind thesuperficial similarities between the shops. Some shop owners expressedgreat pride in creating an attractive and functional shop, while otherswere clearly less enthusiastic. There were also differences in familiaritywith local taste and fashion. Some of the shop owners who were notparticularly sensitive, or spent large parts of the year abroad, ended upwith masses of unsaleable goods. These included jigsaw puzzles,framed quotations from the Koran and glaringly unfashionableChinese underwear.

Chinese business and the local market

The local market for clothes and shoes was roughly divided into twosegments before baihuo shops opened in Sao Vicente. On the onehand, there were the upmarket boutiques, which are often less than tensquare metres large and keep a selection of clothes, shoes andaccessories bought mainly in Brazil or Southern Europe. Typically,the boutiques only have one of each item, a very low turnover and highprofit margins. The boutiques are run exclusively by women, many ofwhom do not depend on the income from their shop but are motivatedby the prospect of frequent travel to purchase goods. At the other endof the market was the municipal market, occupied in part by mainlandAfricans. These vendors either bought their goods from traders whotravelled regularly to Portugal or Senegal, or bought goods abroad inperson. The clothes imported from such places were often produced inSoutheast Asia, but had become anything but cheap by the time theyreached Cape Verde.

The Chinese shops have managed to capture a large proportion ofboth ends of the Cape Verdean market by providing fashionable goodscheaply. At the lower end, this has resulted in a transformation ofbusiness at the municipal market. Many of the stalls have now closed,and those that are still in business specialize increasingly in goodsother than clothes. At the top end, many boutiques have sufferedcompetition as a result of the increasingly fashionable stock of thebaihuo shops. Those that have fared best are the most upmarketboutiques, whose customers are willing to pay a high price for aguarantee that only one or two of a particular dress or pair of shoeshave been brought to the island.3

Chinese and Cape Verdeans alike commonly assert that the livingstandard of poor Cape Verdeans has improved with the entry of theChinese. One shop owner had ‘heard that before the Chinese came,very few people wore shoes. At least now they have shoes.’ Localsconfirm this, saying that the arrival of the Chinese has meant thatchildren in Cape Verde no longer need to go barefoot to school. Theother, equally emotive example frequently referred to by Cape


Verdeans is that now all parents can afford to buy their childrenChristmas presents.

During the past few years, a far wider range of goods has becomeavailable in baihuo shops. At first, these shops sold only Chinesegoods. In 2000, however, some baihuo shop owners started buyingbrand cosmetics and Brazilian footwear and clothes from localimporters. Other Chinese quickly copied this innovation when theysaw that it was successful. Brazilian clothes and shoes are veryfashionable in Cape Verde, and are priced up to ten times higher thansimilar Chinese goods. The baihuo shop owners sell them with a lowgross profit, sometimes as little as 5 per cent, and have gained anadditional edge over the boutiques. Brazilian goods still represent amarginal part of the turnover in the baihuo shops, but some Chinesenow go to Brazil to import goods and plan to make such goods alarger part of their businesses.

The Chinese migrants’ wholesale purchases of brand cosmetics andBrazilian clothes and footwear represent an increased integration intothe local economy. The baihuo shops now also sell Chinese goodswholesale to other retailers. Itinerant vendors from the Africanmainland purchase goods directly from the baihuo shops at a discountand sell them on the street or in the countryside.

The social organization of the baihuo business

All the Chinese who live in Sao Vicente are involved in the baihuobusiness, either as shop owners or as workers. The shop ownersmanage the businesses, recruit employees locally and in China, andarrange the migration of their Chinese employees. Almost all theChinese workers in the baihuo shops in Cape Verde are in theirtwenties or late teens. They usually repay the cost of their ticketsby working without pay for one or two years. Chinese workers areseen as necessary not because they are Chinese, but because they arerecruited among relatives or from the families of people who arewell known and trusted. These pre-existing ties as well as thecircumstances of migration, employment and lodging create arelationship of dependence and loyalty between employees andemployers that is a key element in the social organization of thebusinesses. As one young Chinese worker put it, ‘My employer andI are not related by blood, but since he brought me, it is as if we arefamily’.

When applying for a visa to Cape Verde, Chinese workers need awritten contract that regulates their terms of employment. Typically,the contract states that the worker will receive a monthly salary ofUSD 250, in addition to board, lodging and healthcare. However, theshop owner and the future employee both understand this contract as


pro forma, and oral agreements are made about the real terms ofemployment while the workers are still in China. The content of theseagreements varies greatly between workers and sometimes changesduring the employment period. All workers receive board and lodgingfrom their employers. In addition, some receive a monthly salary,typically ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 Escudos (USD 100�/250). Insome cases, the workers do not know how much they earn; they onlyknow that their employers will pay a sum of money to them or theirparents upon their return to China. Whatever the terms of employ-ment, Chinese workers cannot expect to earn money for quite sometime after their arrival. Not only do they have to repay the cost of theirticket, but their initial period of employment, varying between a fewmonths and a couple of years, is considered an ‘apprenticeship period’in which they learn the language and business skills while they workwithout pay.

Every baihuo shop employs a number of local workers whoseprincipal tasks are to assist customers and guard against shoplifting.These are usually paid 7,000�/8,000 Escudos (USD 70�/80) per monthfor a 45-hour week. There are very few cases of Cape Verdean workersbeing entrusted with handling money in the shops. While most Chinesesay that they are fond of the Cape Verdean people, they mistrust themas workers. Cape Verdeans are frequently fired after accusations ofhaving stolen goods or having allowed their friends to do so.

A Chinese person cannot run a baihuo shop alone because it isnecessary for someone to spend time away from the shop purchasinggoods, getting goods through customs, going to the bank or sortingout other business. All baihuo shops therefore have at least oneChinese worker, with the exception of some shops owned and managedby couples. Due to the special loyalty between shop owners and theworkers they have brought into the country, there is practically nomobility between employers, even when all parties involved might havebenefited from it in purely economic terms.

Chinese entrepreneurs have so far established themselves in CapeVerde independently of the Chinese state (the PRC). In 2003, CapeVerdean authorities requested assistance from the Chinese embassy toimprove the compliance of Chinese employers with Cape Verdeanlabour laws, an initiative welcomed by some Chinese shop owners.Otherwise, the embassy has had little to do with the baihuo businesses.Despite the lack of any direct connection with the Chinese state,many Cape Verdeans �/ including high-ranking officials in the areaof commerce �/ wrongly assume that the government gives Chinesetraders preferential treatment in return for Chinese developmentaid.


‘One Chinese is a dragon, three Chinese are bugs’

From the mid-1990s to 2003, the number of Chinese in Cape Verdeincreased five-fold, and the number of baihuo shops grew to about onehundred. The growth in the number of shops and in the number ofChinese residents are intimately connected, but driven by distincteconomic and social dynamics that warrant separate discussions.

Ever more shops

The number of baihuo shops in Sao Vicente has grown steadily in twoways: through established shop owners expanding their businesses andopening more shops, and through new owners entering the market.These new owners usually have a relationship with incumbents: asrelatives, former employees, or both. Having several outlets increasesthe turnover of goods. Shop owners have therefore been keen toincrease the number of shops under their control, either through directownership or by lending goods to new establishments and sharing theprofit. However, this growth in the number of outlets has resulted in alower turnover in each baihuo shop. The small city centre is nowdotted with baihuo shops, of which the majority belong to a smallnumber of ownership groups (Figure 1).

Many Chinese workers came to Cape Verde in the hope of one dayopening their own shop. This offers an opportunity to make money,become more independent and make regular visits to China to importgoods. To set up shop, typically after several years as an employee, theworker must borrow goods that can be paid for once the shop startsearning money. The person lending out such goods runs a risk, as thegoods may never be paid for if the new shop is badly managed.Confidence in the shop owner is therefore a prerequisite, whichgenerally limits such borrowing arrangements to relatives and formeremployees. When lending out goods (i.e. selling wholesale on credit),shop owners often demand that the buyer refrain from buyingwholesale from other Chinese for a period of two to three years.During this time, the new shop owner retains little profit, and thetemptation to buy cheaper or better goods from other shop ownersmay be great. Violations of such agreements have caused bitterconflicts between shop owners, even those who are closely related.

When there were few baihuo shops in Cape Verde, shop owners werereluctant to lend out goods to help workers start by themselves, as thiswould mean both taking a risk and having to find a replacement forthe lost worker, as well as boosting the competition. Today, however,some shop owners actively encourage their workers to start new shopsbecause a higher turnover of goods is necessary to retrieve their fixedcosts of importation.


Figure 1. Chinese shops in Sao Vicente, 2003

Note: The ownership groups are differently structured. In some cases, differentshops within one group are run as one firm. In other cases, shops within a groupare managed by close relatives who have separate accounts and limitedcooperation


Ever more Chinese people

New immigrants from China generally come to Cape Verde at theinvitation of migrants who have already established themselves in thecountry and can produce the necessary documents for a visaapplication. To explain why they came to Cape Verde, all the Chinesein Sao Vicente pointed to networks and sheer coincidence. Theyaccepted an emigration opportunity that happened to take them toCape Verde; they did not select Cape Verde from among alternativedestinations. The established migrants’ motivations for bringing morepeople over from China fall into one or more of the following fivecategories.

First, a wish to be reunited with family members motivates manyinvitations. Some of the first Chinese to settle on Cape Verde were menwho left China with a dream of making money abroad, but with littleknowledge about the conditions awaiting them. They left their wivesand other family members behind. Only after they had establishedbusinesses and knew they could make a living in Cape Verde did theysend for their families. Several Chinese who came to Cape Verde asyoung adults have gone back to China to marry, and then returnedtogether with their spouses. Children and parents, on the other hand,are normally left in China, where they have access to better health andeducational services.

A second reason for bringing people from China to Cape Verde isthe need for trusted Chinese workers in the shops. One of the mostsuccessful shop owners in Sao Vicente has invited eight familymembers to work for him, and some Chinese claimed that thisperson’s success was related to his ability to draw on a pool of reliableworkers from his large family. An increase in crimes against Chinese inCape Verde has encouraged some shop owners to consider bringingadditional Chinese workers to Cape Verde to ensure that no one is leftalone in the shop when the owners are out travelling.

A third reason for inviting people is a wish to help family membersor friends to emigrate. Some Chinese workers were given a chance toescape a situation of school failure or unemployment in China. Insome cases, such an arrangement was presented as a favour by theshop owner to the young worker’s parents. At the same time, someworkers described coming to Cape Verde as a favour to theiremployers to help them meet their labour needs.

Fourth, bringing people to Cape Verde can be part of a strategy ofexpansion. New migrants may be encouraged to open subsidiaryshops, and may also facilitate onward migration. As in EasternEurope, most of the Chinese entrepreneurs who move on to otherAfrican countries prefer to retain their businesses in the originallocation, usually in the care of a recently arrived friend or relative


(Nyıri 2003). This constitutes a form of insurance, and is a way ofavoiding a loss-making market exit. Exporting Chinese goods fromone African country to another is unprofitable, and it is difficult to selloff old goods without making a loss while other shops continue toattract customers with new goods.

Finally, there are migrants who bring people to Cape Verde becausethey can make money as migration brokers (snakeheads). There hasbeen considerable potential for earning money from migrationbrokering, despite the fact that entry to Cape Verde is perfectly legal.To get a Cape Verdean visa, the Chinese need a work contract with anestablished business in Cape Verde. Migration brokers issue suchcontracts for a fee and accompany the migrants on their journey toCape Verde. Because they lack the necessary social connections,information and language skills to organize the migration to CapeVerde themselves, some people have paid as much as 80,000 RMB(USD 12,000) to be brought to the country. Today, however, themarket situation in Cape Verde means that the potential for migrationbrokering is sharply reduced. The attractiveness of Cape Verde as astepping-stone for migration to Europe is also less than it was in thepast. A few years ago, Cape Verdean residence permits, which enabledChinese immigrants to apply from Cape Verde for Schengen visas,could be acquired quite easily. However, some Chinese began to bribelocal officials to speed up the processing of their permits. When theCape Verdean government cracked down on this corruption, obtainingresidence permits and visas to the Schengen area became moredifficult. There is no clear-cut division between assisting relatives orfriends to come to Cape Verde and being involved in migrationbrokering as a business. Some of those who pay large sums to bebrought to Cape Verde are relatives or friends of their migrationbroker. Similarly, the first Chinese migration brokers in Central andEastern Europe were recent immigrants who had assisted relatives andfriends with their migration, and then realized that such brokeringcould be a new line of business (Nyıri 2003).

Market saturation and the social consequences

By 2001�/02, the market for Chinese goods in Sao Vicente had becomesaturated. Baihuo shop owners complain that the Chinese havebecome too numerous in Cape Verde, and that the country is simplytoo small. Migrants who have been in Cape Verde for a long timeremember with fondness when there were just a few Chinese shops.One of them, when asked which business changes he had seen duringhis years in Cape Verde, answered sarcastically that ‘the only businesschange is that there is no business anymore’. Newly established ownersof baihuo shops explain their difficulties in making money in Cape


Verde by their late arrival, remarking that ‘one Chinese is a dragon,three Chinese are bugs’. Many Chinese in Cape Verde saw marketsaturation as a general feature of Chinese migration, relating it to whatthey had heard about other places:

In every place where Chinese arrive and a few years go by, theproblem is the same. Quickly conditions become bad. As in EasternEurope, in Romania. In 1993�/1994, it was really good to dobusiness in Romania. But now the situation there is unbearable.There are too many people, even worse than here. Three�/four years,then conditions get bad, because once some Chinese arrive in aplace, they become too many! Once the Chinese arrive in a country,business deteriorates. (Chinese shop owner)

The fall in profit levels is associated not only with the increasednumber of Chinese shops, but also with demand-related changes in theCape Verdean market. When the first baihuo shops were established,there was a large, unmet demand for their goods. For example, manypoor households had previously been unable to afford a rack fordisplaying photos of emigrant relatives, plastic flowers and otherknick-knacks. Low-price racks were initially sold in large quantities bythe baihuo shops, but today most families have already bought one.The demand for less durable items, like shoes and clothes, is morestable. Yet, even these goods are harder to sell once past supplyshortages have been made up for. Newly opened baihuo shops, whichoffer the same range of goods as the established ones, thus face theproblem of a declining overall demand in addition to fierce competi-tion from existing incumbents.

The atmosphere within the Chinese community in Sao Vicente hasbecome less amicable as a result of the intense competition. Onewoman described how the Chinese would play mahjong and cardstogether and invite each other for Chinese New Year in the past, whiletoday there is little such interaction. Many Chinese stress that,although friendly at a superficial level, people interact in ways markedby underlying distrust. Distrust causes some shop owners to forbidtheir workers to interact with the workers in other shops. There arealso workers who choose not to have much contact with other Chinesefor fear of accidentally hurting their employer’s business, as explainedby one young Chinese: ‘People don’t like to talk to one another, peopledon’t want to tell the truth. All those things come from business [. . .].The owners don’t want the young people to talk to each other becauseof business. Then people become afraid of all types of conversation’.Fear of making a wrong judgement keep some Chinese in Sao Vicentefrom interacting with other Chinese altogether, even to the extent ofnot responding when greeted on the street.


At the same time, the situation for Chinese migrants in Cape Verdehas also deteriorated in other ways. First, there has been an increase incrime. Shoplifting has always been a problem and is seen asunavoidable by shop owners. Since 2002, however, there have beenseveral cases of violent robberies against Chinese. That the Chinese areincreasingly visible as a relatively wealthy minority also makes themprone to other forms of exploitation. Local landlords letting out shoppremises and apartments to Chinese have pushed up prices to such anextent that it is no longer easy to make a profit in the baihuo trade.Some officials who deal with Chinese have also started asking forpersonal favours. While most Chinese say that corruption is not asserious in Cape Verde as in China, it appears to be rising, and isperpetuated as requests for bribes are met. Lastly, the Cape Verdeangovernment has begun considering measures to restrict emigrationfrom China.

Ironically, the constant growth in the number of shops leads mostCape Verdeans to conclude that the Chinese are making big profits.This probably encourages both crime and corruption, as well as otherforms of exploitation. The impression of a booming business also givesofficials an unfounded fear of being overwhelmed by migrants. A high-ranking executive justified his calls for visa restrictions by saying that‘putting one Chinese village here would make the country sink into theAtlantic’.

Responses to market saturation in Cape Verde

Faced with a saturated market for their goods, the Chinese in CapeVerde have, to varying extents, employed the four strategies outlined inthe introduction. The first response, geographical expansion, has so farbeen the most important reaction to the increased competition in thebaihuo business. The opportunities for spatial expansion wereoriginally considerable, as Cape Verde consists of nine populatedislands, some with several population centres large enough to supportat least one baihuo shop. From the capital Praia, baihuo shops spreadto Sao Vicente and other islands. The availability of places with anunmet demand for cheap consumer goods provided little incentive fororiginality, and the new shops were faithfully modelled on the existingones.

Today, baihuo shops are established on all Cape Verde’s islands andpopulation centres. The potential for geographical expansion withinthe country is therefore exhausted. Some shop owners have respondedby establishing businesses in Angola and Mozambique. They have kepttheir shops in Cape Verde as security while establishing themselves onthe mainland, letting Chinese employees and relatives run thesebusinesses. Once baihuo shops in mainland Africa prove profitable,


the Chinese migrants shut down or sell some of their shops in CapeVerde. Several other Chinese families in Cape Verde are nowconsidering opening businesses in mainland Africa. One man reasonsthat only by moving to a country with fewer Chinese will he be able tomake a good profit: ‘When the competition between Chinese is fierce,the profit will go to the local customers. That’s why I want to leave. Iwant to keep the profit myself, not give it away!’

Second, the owners of baihuo shops have responded to falling salesby engaging in price wars. Consequently, the net profit on sales hasfallen markedly. Some baihuo shops have now stopped displayingprices on their goods because they fear being undercut by competitors.As a precautionary measure, they prefer to tell customers the priceonly upon request. Cape Verdeans have also become more consciousof the quality of what they buy, and many importers have reduced theirprofits by selling higher quality goods without raising prices. Thedecrease in profits makes the situation especially difficult for newlyestablished shops, which share the profit of their sales with theirimporters.

The continued emigration from China is an important reason for thequantitative expansion of baihuo shops in Cape Verde with minimalchanges in how these businesses are run, much as Pieke and Benton(1998) described for the Chinese catering business in The Netherlands.The newly arrived migrants from China provide cheap labour, and putup with much hardship because they hope to eventually becomeindependent entrepreneurs. The workload of Chinese entrepreneursand their workers alike was increased when some baihuo shopsexpanded their business hours and virtually all other Chinese followedsuit. The substantial lowering of prices since the first baihuo shopsopened has been possible because the early baihuo shops maintainedvery high profit margins. However, the potential for cutting prices isnow almost exhausted, as is the potential for generating income byexploiting a docile labour force more intensely.

Neither of the two final responses to market saturation �/ sectoralexpansion and innovation �/ has so far been important among ownersof baihuo shops in Sao Vicente. In fact, sectoral specialization hasincreased, since there is no longer even one Chinese restaurant in thecity. Although the price level of a range of goods is still high in CapeVerde, the Chinese entrepreneurs have so far been faithful to thebaihuo concept. The potential for expansion into the food sector isapparently especially high, as dry and canned foods are sold at pricesthat often exceed those in Western Europe. Such commodities couldpresumably be imported from China. The Chinese explain theirabsence from the food sector on the basis of their limited knowledgeof local tastes, lack of necessary connections for importing foodstuffsand shortage of capital.


Paradoxically, the fierce competition from other Chinese shopsserves as a disincentive for sectoral expansion and innovation. Oneshop owner was afraid that if he started importing canned fruits fromChina to sell in his shop, other shops would copy his idea if the canssold well. The profit margins would soon be pushed down, and hewould earn little from having gone through the trouble of figuring outhow to import the fruit. In other words, the profit from innovation isshared between all the Chinese shops, while in the case of failure thepioneer bears the loss alone. Lack of social networks is anotherobstacle to innovation. The first Chinese who approached a localto buy Brazilian goods wholesale was able to do so because of goodlanguage skills and social connections, resources that many Chineselack. A third impediment is the Chinese community’s disapprovingattitudes towards attempts at innovation. When the first Chineseshop distributed flyers on the streets to announce that new goodshad arrived, owners of other baihuo shops ridiculed the initiative,while simultaneously trying to find out if the advertising had anyeffect.

A possibly groundbreaking change in the baihuo business occurredin late 2003, when one Chinese entrepreneur decided to lend a CapeVerdean employee goods so that she could open her own baihuo shop.He did not want to send for a Chinese person, because the ticket fromChina is expensive and the paperwork to get a visa bothersome. Thecultural and linguistic challenges of such a move worried him, and hewas worried about losing the more than 200,000 RMB (30,000 USD)he had invested in the goods and in renting the shop. However, he feltthat the potential gains made it worthwhile to risk losing his venturecapital and becoming the laughing stock of the Chinese community:‘When I let a local person open a shop, the other Chinese will certainlythink I have lost my mind. [. . .] So what? They might be afraid whatwill happen if locals start running Chinese shops’. The Chinese inCape Verde have good reason to pay attention if such an innovationturns out to be successful. Today, the greatest impediment to openingnew baihuo shops is the time and money required to bring people fromChina. If Cape Verdeans run baihuo shops, there are no migrationcosts to be recovered. Cape Verdeans generally have a lower standardof living than the Chinese in Cape Verde, and will therefore be contentwith taking out less profit from the shop. This may serve to furtherdrive down prices in the baihuo business, and will influence futureChinese migration to Cape Verde.

Conclusions

It is striking that much of the new entrepreneurial migration fromChina is directed to regions with substantial native out-migration.


While the socio-economic adaptation of Chinese in Cape Verde isvastly different from that of Cape Verdeans in Europe and the USA,there are remarkable similarities between the contexts of emigration inCape Verde and Zhejiang (Li Anshan 1999; Li Minghuan 1999;Carling 2001, 2002; Akesson 2004). Both Cape Verde and the Chinesemigrants’ region of origin in Southern Zhejiang are characterized bylongstanding traditions of emigration that have gained self-sustainingmomentum. In both regions, the latest news about immigrationpolicies and practices in different European countries is a hot topicof discussion. In both Cape Verde and Zhejiang, people who do nottake advantage of an opportunity to go abroad are often frownedupon, and people without close relatives abroad quite openly displayboth resentment of the emigrant’s position and an eagerness to becomelike them. What Lisa Akesson (2004) describes as ‘migration ideology’in Cape Verde has a parallel in Li Minghuan’s (1999) notion of‘qiaoxiang [i.e. overseas Chinese area] consciousness’ in SouthernZhejiang. In both cases, discourse about place and belonging presentsthe local area as special by virtue of its active linkages with the widerworld. The striking similarities in the cultural dynamics of emigrationreiterate the significance of Chinese migration to areas of native out-migration.

The heydays of the baihuo business in its present form are over inCape Verde. As one of our informants put it, ‘I think that no Chineserunning a business here now can be said to succeed. [. . .] Those whosucceeded have already left.’ The turning point in the number ofbaihuo shops in Sao Vicente was probably reached around Christmas2003. Only two weeks later, the number of shops had already fallenfrom twenty-six to twenty-four. However, there is likely to be asustained demand for baihuo goods. A probable scenario therefore isthat the number of shops will decline over the coming years, but willeventually stabilize at a lower level. A decisive factor in the marketdevelopment is whether some entrepreneurs are able to invest in muchlarger shops with a greater range of goods, as recently happened inMozambique and Togo.

Access to information is a key determinant of success or failure inthe new entrepreneurial migration. Our informants were constantlysearching for information that could point them to new businessopportunities. Another example of the commercial value of informa-tion is that one Chinese migrant could charge another more than10,000 USD for helping him or her to come to Cape Verde, althoughthe migration process was arranged in perfectly legal ways. Within thebaihuo business in Sao Vicente, information is a key component in thefierce competition. Prices are no longer displayed in most of the shops,and even among friends, business information is sensitive and secret.‘If he’s doing baihuo and I’m doing baihuo,’ one shop owner said, ‘he’s


not going to tell me things. If he does, I’ll wonder why he’s telling meso much.’ Most strikingly, information affects the location of theChinese diaspora’s profitable edge in time and space. The timing of theonset of the baihuo boom in Cape Verde was not determined by anymajor changes in the country. Had information about the CapeVerdean market spread earlier, the peak in baihuo shops would mostprobably have come earlier.

The Chinese business migrants have brought about an increase inthe purchasing power of Cape Verdeans due to lower prices. Locallandlords have profited greatly from the steep increase in rentbrought about by Chinese businesses. At the same time, localretailers see their profits dwindle and are driven out of business as aresult of the competition from the Chinese. The gains and lossesconnected with the surge of the baihuo business in Cape Verde areunevenly distributed among both the Chinese and the CapeVerdeans. Some of those who arrived while Cape Verde was stillon the edge of the Chinese diaspora �/ a place for pioneers �/ havemade considerable fortunes. Latecomers must make a living fromthe sad remains of a once booming market, and try to recover theborrowed money and savings they have invested in their migrationand their shops. Many Chinese workers find themselves in asituation of extreme dependence and vulnerability, where theirreturn to China or onward migration and their living conditionsin Cape Verde are determined by the business decisions andcommercial skills of their employers.

This article has shown how Chinese migrants in Cape Verde seethe Chinese diaspora as an expanding social field that graduallycovers virgin territory. It is on the ever-shifting edge of the diasporathat courageous pioneers make large profits. Following the ‘discovery’of Cape Verde in the mid-1990s, the market has been saturated.We have demonstrated how the economic dynamics of marketsaturation are linked with the social dynamics and migratory aspira-tions of the Chinese population. The establishment of baihuo shops inCape Verde has exemplified the potential of the Chinese diaspora toreach and transform markets as small and remote as this Africanoutpost.

Acknowledgements

The Nordic Africa Institute and the Meltzer Foundation have fundedthe fieldwork for this project. We would like to express our thanks tothe many Chinese and Cape Verdean informants who shared theirexperiences with us. Many thanks to Hege M. Knutsen and twoanonymous referees for their comments.


Notes

1. Emigrants in the post-1978 period are generally referred to as ‘new migrants’. The use

of the term ‘entrepreneur’ partly overlaps with ‘trader’ (which is commonly used in relation

to the Chinese diaspora) but also includes restaurant owners, medical practitioners and

others who are not engaged in trade.

2. The four countries (with 1996 estimates of Chinese populations) are Mauritius (40,000),

South Africa (28,000), Madagascar (27,000) and the French overseas department Reunion

(25,000). The estimated total for Africa is 135,000 (Li Anshan 1999).

3. There are considerable differences between Sao Vicente and the capital Praia in terms

of market structure. In Praia, there are fewer boutiques and a much bigger and vibrant

outdoor market, with approximately 800 vendors, predominately women. However,

competition from the Chinese has also had a significant impact on market traders in Praia

(Grassi 2003).

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HEIDI ØSTBØ HAUGEN is a recent graduate from the Centre forDevelopment and the Environment, University of Oslo.ADDRESS: Centre for Development and the Environment,University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1116 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway.Email: [email protected]

JØRGEN CARLING is Researcher at the International PeaceResearch Institute, Oslo, (PRIO).ADDRESS: International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO),Fuglehauggata 11, 0260 Oslo, Norway. Email: [email protected]


On the edge of the Chinese diaspora: The surge of baihuo business in an African city

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