Despite pledges of "mutual benefit" and "win-win" cooperation on the part of Chinese government and business leaders, this current phase of Sino-African relations remains very much a one way street. We constantly hear about Chinese enterprises breaking into African markets and Chinese merchants migrating to various African states, but quite little about similar incidences going the other way. Even the China-Africa Business Council, a flagship of the UNDP, remains based in Beijing and has as its focus the grooming of Chinese businesses for entry into African markets, paying little heed to the prospects for African firms seeking to break into the Chinese market.
There is, however, a growing population of Africans across China. In the most recent issue of The New Yorker, Evan Osnos writes about African merchants living in Guangzhou, in a part of town now referred to as "Chocolate City." You can read Osnos' piece here, and watch a narrated slideshow about the economic, social and religious life of African migrants in Guangzhou here.