A social history of the Chinese in Lesotho

Abstract

The Chinese migrant community within the Kingdom of Lesotho represents one of the least explored groups of Chinese migrants within southern Africa. Analysis of the Chinese within Lesotho has mostly focused on their economic position within Lesotho. Furthermore, studies of the Chinese migrant population of Lesotho have tended to deal with them in a generalized or homogenized manner and neglected a nuanced examination. In light of the comparatively recent interest in the history of Chinese migrants within southern Africa, and the hostility such migrants have faced due to assumptions concerning them, it is pertinent to examine the Chinese migrant community of Lesotho in greater depth. This calls for a particular focus on the social history of the Chinese in Lesotho to reveal the multifarious nature of that community and, in addition, to challenge certain core assumptions concerning Chinese migrants the developing Chinese Lesotho community poses. The presence of Chinese migrants within Lesotho dates back to the 1960s. Although it was political connections with Taiwan which preceded the arrival of the initial Taiwanese migrants to Lesotho, state-sponsored migration was never the primary vehicle for the community that formed within the Kingdom. Private interests, motivated by a range of factors, saw the establishment of an initial Chinese community formed from Taiwanese business interests and labour pools. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s this community would grow through the arrival of mainland Chinese, predominantly from Shanghai, brought over by Taiwanese companies. When Lesotho’s political relationship with Taiwan broke down and it transferred its allegiance to the People’s Republic of China in the late 1990s, a period of anti-Chinese hostility led to violence in the 1990s which saw a major exodus of Taiwanese and other mainland Chinese from Lesotho. Starting in the 2000s, however, a new Chinese community began to form in Lesotho the result of a large migration by Fujianese traders into Lesotho. Examination of the history of the Chinese community in Lesotho has tended to proceed along the same assumptions made around numerous Chinese migrant communities within southern Africa: that they are a uniform and insular community with little integration in the surrounding society and predominantly only focused on economic activities. However, a closer analysis of the history of the Chinese within Lesotho reveals that this is an overly generalized statement. There is evidence of the development, among both Taiwanese and later Fujianese, of a Chinese Lesotho community which is multi-faceted, and which has begun to develop its own unique identity as the community actively pursues greater integration within Lesotho’s civil society.