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Godfrey Olukya

It was a racist remark supposedly made in private to workers in Kenya, but was heard by many beyond the country’s borders.
Liu Jiaqi, a Chinese manager for a motorcycle company referred to Kenyans, including the country’s president, as monkeys.
The moment was captured on video by Richard Ochienga, a Kenyan who was included in the monkey name-calling by his boss. The video posted online in September went viral.
The backlash in Kenya was so strong that Liu was deported.


The footage highlighted how an incident, through the power of social media, can potentially tarnish the reputation of the wider Chinese expat community and undermine Beijing’s bid to woo Africa.
The outrage spread to neighbouring Uganda, which also hosts a large Chinese community.
“The racist monkey remarks angered Ugandans and some started being unfriendly towards Chinese,” said Stanley Mbalire, a labour officer in Uganda’s capital Kampala.

UPDATE:
Chinese National by the Name Liu Jiaqi who was captured on video yesterday using abusive words has been arrested. His work permit has been canceled and will be deported on racism grounds. Via @GKihalangwa cc. @InteriorKE @FredMatiangi #AskImmigrationKE pic.twitter.com/o0hS6d219K
— Immigration Kenya. (@ImmigrationDept) September 6, 2018

“Some Ugandans working in Chinese companies have openly started warning their Chinese bosses against racism. They started telling them without fear that they should not mistreat them.”
Talkback radio shows also latched onto the issue, as did Ugandans on social media.
The interracial couple championing China’s soft power in Africa
“If you discriminate us or behave in a racist manner, we will do to you what Idi Amin did to Asians in 1972,’’ a guest on Uganda’s Star FM declared recently.
He was referring to the former dictator who expelled tens of thousands of South Asians he accused of controlling the country’s economy.
It’s an unlikely outcome this time, but the rhetoric risks resurrecting animosity towards the country’s Chinese guests.

In 2017, years of growing resentment towards Chinese traders turned into a protest in Kampala by hundreds of Ugandans who complained they were undercutting local businesses with their cheap goods. In 2011, riots in Kampala also largely targeted foreign traders.
Accurate figures for the number of Chinese in Uganda are hard to come by, though it has been reported there could be 10,000-50,000 Chinese migrants living there, thousands of them illegally.
Those who are there legally work in factories and on large infrastructure projects that are bankrolled by China through loans.

This is the largest ever private investment of China in Uganda, which is around $630 million. The project will create around 3000 local jobs and save tens of millions of dollars every year for Uganda in importing fertilizer, steel, glass and so on. pic.twitter.com/OQ4Ool8Yvd
— Chinese Embassy in Uganda (@ChineseEmb_Uga) October 25, 2018

Those big projects are part of Beijing’s massive “Belt and Road Initiative”, President Xi Jinping’s plan to create modern Silk Road trading routes across Eurasia and Africa by building railways, roads and ports.
According to Uganda’s labour ministry, over 90,000 jobs have been created through Chinese private and state-backed projects in the country.
Botched Chinese railway project in Africa is a warning to belt and road investors
But Chinese working alongside Ugandans isn’t always harmonious.
‘’We get some complaints about Chinese racism at places of work. Although some are genuine, others lack credible evidence,’’ Uganda government spokesman Ofwono Opondo P’Odel said.
Some cases do not involve racism, but mistreatment by Chinese employers.
In January this year, Ugandan workers of China Railway Number Five, a Chinese company building the Kabwoya-Hoima road in rural southwest Uganda complained their Chinese bosses underpaid and physically beat them.

“I have handled about five cases of Chinese beating workers and these workers have been duly compensated,” Isaac Kawooya, a government representative from the district, said.
In Kenya earlier this year, workers on a new Chinese-built railway claimed racism and discrimination by Chinese staff and managers. However, the government there dismissed allegations of racism on the US$3.2 billion signature infrastructure project.
African woman who auditioned for ‘racist’ Chinese TV gala show speaks out on blackface row
Three years ago a small Chinese restaurant in the capital Nairobi was shut down by authorities and the owner charged for operating a “no blacks” policy after 5pm.
Zhang Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Kenya said Chinese nationals were urged to make “positive contributions to the friendship and cooperation between China and Kenya”.
Why the billions China is pouring into Africa might not be smart money
Calls to China’s embassy in Uganda went unanswered, but it acknowledged “isolated cases of racism” in a statement in July.
Retired Ugandan diplomat Isac Okello said the monkey slur incident was an important lesson for Chinese.
“A single incident can easily spoil the good relationship between China and Africa,” he said.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse


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Africa

How a racist slur aimed at a few offended many and put Africa’s Chinese community at risk

Liu Jiaqi, the Chinese national who was deported from Kenya after a video of him making a string of racist remarks was widely shared on social media. Photo: Department of Immigration Services Kenya

In this photo taken Monday, June 8, 2015, Chinese national Wei Kun, center, and his sales executive Allen Tushabe, right, sell a pair of shoes made in China to a customer at their shop in Kampala, Uganda. Over the past 10 years, Chinese industrial giants have invested billions across Africa, and there has been an accompanying explosion of retailers opening small shops from Senegal in the west to Algeria in the north, Zimbabwe in the south and Uganda in the east. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)

The new expressway is seen near Mpala toll station before the inauguration ceremony of the Chinese-funded 51-kilometer Expressway linking the capital city and the international airport in Entebbe, Uganda, on June 15, 2018. (Photo by Sumy Sadurni / AFP)

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Emerging from dictatorship, a movement against Chinese fishing investments gains momentum in Gambia

(180906) -- BEIJING, Sept. 6, 2018 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Gambian President Adama Barrow at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 6, 2018. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)(lmm)

Alanson Aquante at his smokehouse in Gunjur, the Gambia. The price of small fish has gone up.

The Chinese-run JXYG Aquatic fishmeal plant in the Gambia has been targeted by protesters.

Fishermen in Tanji, Gambia. Photo: Nosmot Gbadamosi

Beijing set to pledge billions more for Africa despite concerns over Chinese lending

Kenya’s new Chinese-built railway opened last year, becoming the country’s biggest infrastructure project since independence in 1963. Photo: AFP

scmp

This photo taken on August 1, 2017 shows Chinese People's Liberation Army personnel attending the opening ceremony of China's new military base in Djibouti. China has deployed troops to its first overseas naval base in Djibouti, a major step forward for the country's expansion of its military presence abroad. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT

***ONE TIME USE ONLY, PLEASE CLEAR THE COPYRIGHTS BEFORE RE-USE - OTUO*** Chinese troops based in Djibouti staged a live fire drill over the weekend, in less than two months after moving there. Photo: HANDOUT

Seeing double? Chinese newspapers use identical frontpages for African summit coverage

The official People’s Daily set the tone for much of the coverage. Photo: SCMP

XIPAPERS The China-Africa Cooperation forum saw Xi Jinping meet various African heads of state in Beijing over the weekend. With so many important figures and so many meetings, Chinese state media found a way to cover them all somehow -- by arranging the coverage neatly one after another on their frontpages. (Photos of the coverage on different major state newspapers)

News

World

China

A Chinese boss in Kenya was caught on video calling an employee a ‘monkey’
Footage went viral, sparking outrage and highlighting how a seemingly small incident can potentially tarnish the broader Chinese expat community


Liu Jiaqi was caught on video insulting Kenyans who worked for him, but they weren’t the only Africans who were angry about it.


China-Africa relations

Belt and Road Initiative