A History of the African Diaspora in China (1956-2012) - History Progress Review, Yimei Liu

African migration to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) can be traced back to the 1950s, when the first African students arrived at the PRC to study. Since then, scholarship on Sino-African relations has largely focus on diplomacy, economic cooperation, and state-level interaction. The rise of official Sino-African relations has, however, submerged the history of the everyday lives of African people in China. This thesis shifts the focus from state control narratives to social encounters. It analyses how African migrants chose, lived, interacted, and negotiated their place within Chinese society, while their presence was simultaneously shaped and framed by the political and economic discourse of Sino-African relations. By reconstructing the historical experiences of African migrants across different periods, this study also explores the formation and transformation of racial discourse in China. At the same time, it asks why Africans chose to migrate to a country whose social, cultural environment differed so markedly from their homelands.

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