Abdellah Cheballah
Agence France Presse
ALGIERS: More than 25,000 Chinese work on huge housing projects and cross-country highways in Algeria, but few have any deep contacts with the local population. For more than a decade tens of thousands of Chinese workers have flowed into Algeria, one of the many African nations that have embraced trade and closer political links with China that will be strengthened at a China-Africa summit in Egypt from Sunday.
China became Algeria’s second largest foreign supplier in 2008. Chinese exports reached $2.7 billion, coming from almost nothing in the 1990s. But the language barrier keeps the migrants apart from Algerians.
“The ‘yellow peril’ does not threaten Algeria, the Chinese are well-regarded, despite language and cultural barriers,” said political scientist Rachid Tlemcani.
The government has spent a lot of Algeria’s oil wealth on new homes and infrastructure. Chinese companies have won more than $15 billion worth of those contracts.
“Chinese workers live and work in difficult conditions that many Algerians would not accept, so there is no competition between the two populations. They are part of separate worlds that accept each other,” Tlemcani said.
“These workers are virtually cut off from the Algerian population. They live in basic accommodation set up near the building sites and move around in groups, even when they go shopping,” an Algerian chauffeur for a Chinese construction company said. But there have been tensions.
Since 2002 a number of Chinese have settled in the country, buying clothes shops, jewelers and bazaars, like the Algiers suburb of Bab Ezzouar.
The mini-Chinatown has grown but the harmony was broken in August when a parking dispute escalated into clashes between members of the two communities.
“It was predictable” said one Algerian wholesaler, who complained that his business is surrounded by Chinese shops who have “invaded the area.”
After the clashes the Chinese ambassador called on the Asian migrants to “respect the local laws and customs.”
Leila, who works in a Chinese leather shop, said the tensions were not linked to religion. “Everything is about business.”
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