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Illegal Chinese gold miners blamed for pollution, violence in Ghana
Government officials’ comments add bitterness to the already resentful locals, following wave of negative coverage of Chinese mining practices in the Ghanian media.
www.mining.com
Illegal Chinese gold miners blamed for pollution, violence in Ghana
Cecilia Jamasmie | May 2, 2017 | 3:00 am Precious Metals Africa China Gold
Gold exploration in Ghana. (Image: Screenshot from AlJazeera’s documentary.)
Tensions between Ghana and China have escalated in the past weeks as Africa’s second largest gold producer announced last month the suspension of licenses for small-scale operations, mostly run by Chinese businessmen.
The measure, aimed mainly at reducing the alarming levels of illegal gold mining in the country, has triggered a series of fresh arrests of Chinese miners accused of violating immigrations laws.
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It has also exacerbated long-dragged resentment from locals towards who they blame for the devastating consequences of the illicit activity, which last year contributed to the loss of $2.3 billion in revenue for the state, data from Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources shows. In comparison, Ghana’s legal gold exports brought $3.2 billion last year to the government coffers.
While the country’s new President Nana Akufo-Addo has vowed that no particular group or nationality will be targeted in the government’s clampdown on illegal gold miners, some of his ministers are already pointing fingers at Chinese nationals and their dubious mining practices, who they blame for destructing protected forests and cocoa farms, as well as polluting water streams, FT.com reports:
According to Washington-based Global Financial Integrity, focused on helping reduce illicit financial flows through research and reports, there is increasing evidence of undocumented Chinese miners who enter Ghana from neighbouring countries who employ arms to secure their participation in the illegal activity, which leads to regular clashes with locals.
Facing mounting tensions, violence, and pollution, Ghana has stepped up the arrest and deportation of those illegal foreign miners in recent years. In June and July 2013 alone more than 4,500 illegal Chinese gold miners were deported. More recently, in August 2016, the government expelled about 30 illegal miners, the majority of them Chinese.
Ghana relies on China for billions of dollars in loans and commerce, as the country is its biggest trading partner. The crackdown on illegal foreign miners, experts agree, threatens to make the situation increasingly difficult for Ghana, particularly as the illicit extraction of gold has become an economic lifeline in the country’s rural areas.
Chinese miners’ illegal hunt for gold in Ghana | East Asia Forum
Ghana is struggling to strike a balance between maintaining good relations with Beijing and cracking down on illegal Chinese mining operations.
www.eastasiaforum.org
Chinese miners’ illegal hunt for gold in Ghana
1 November 2019
Author: Hagan Sibiri, Fudan University
Ghana is Africa’s second-largest gold producer after South Africa and small-scale mining accounts for about 30 per cent of total gold output. The small-scale mining sector was legalised in 1989 for citizens while explicitly forbidding the involvement of foreigners. But since 2010, Ghana has become an attractive destination for foreign gold mercantilists, particularly those from China.
The Chinese miners in Ghana, generally known as the ‘Shanglin gang’, predominantly originate from Shanglin County in Guangxi. Their motivations for moving are varied. While Chinese media sources such as the Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald suggest that Shanglin miners go to Ghana to seek their fortune, some residents of Shanglin blame the Chinese government for encouraging the Ghanaian gold rush.
By 2013, significant growth in the number of Chinese miners triggered persistent hostile media coverage of conflicts between Chinese miners and local communities. That year, the Guardian and the BBC reported on the scale of illegal gold mining activities and published allegations of human rights abuses, sparking national tensions. This led to strong opposition and resentment from the Ghanaian public towards Chinese miners.
In response, the government of Ghana formed an inter-ministerial task force to crack down on illegal foreign miners. According to immigration authorities, the military-style task force had deported 4592 Chinese nationals by mid-July 2013. Despite their efforts, the task force failed to deter and end illegal mining activities entirely.
But a change of government in January 2017 ushered in a more vocal anti-illegal mining campaign, championed by a media coalition and supported by various civil society and faith-based groups. A second inter-ministerial task force was formed with a mandate to enforce a ban on illegal small-scale mining. By August 2018, the task force had arrested over 1370 miners, including 247 Chinese nationals. The media have since reported further intermittent arrests of illegal Chinese miners — in 2019 there were 33 arrests in April, 15 arrests in June, seven arrests in August and 24 arrests in September.
These actions have brought about diplomatic dilemmas for Ghana. For instance, the arrest and detention of several Chinese mineworkers, as well as a police crackdown that resulted in the death of a 16-year-old Chinese miner in October 2012, prompted the Chinese government to express concern over Ghana’s actions. In an attempt to ease diplomatic tensions, meetings were held in 2013 between the government of Ghana and China. The two countries resolved to establish a high-powered working committee to examine the problem and fashion out a roadmap to tackle it.
An emergency meeting between the two countries was held again in 2017 after a further spate of Chinese miner arrests. Unenthused with the outcome and the persistent negative coverage of Chinese involvement in the media, the Chinese Embassy in Ghana issued a strongly-worded statement in April 2017 cautioning Ghana and the media about the negative repercussions this issue could have on Ghana–China bilateral relations.
In response, the government of Ghana reiterated its commitment to ensuring robust ties with China while reassuring Chinese investors that Ghana remains keen to encourage economic cooperation. The government subsequently cautioned against the creation of a non-existent diplomatic row between Ghana and China in the wake of the campaign against illegal mining. The measured response demonstrates Ghana’s efforts to protect its bilateral relationship with China — a country that has become Ghana’s biggest foreign investor and trading partner.
This is not the first time that Ghana has faced a dilemma like this. In 2013, the government expressed concern over retaliatory measures from China after a series of deportations of illegal Chinese miners. The concerns arose from reports of tightening Chinese visa rules for Ghanaians, as well as Ghana’s difficulties in accessing a US$3 billion loan facility granted by the China Development Bank.
Similarly, in 2018 Ghana deported a Chinese woman and her associates for engaging in illegal mining. A government minister in April 2019 implied that the decision to avoid prosecution and instead deport the woman and her accomplices was born from government fear of jeopardising the China–Ghana relationship at a time when billions of dollars of agreements were pending between the two countries. A political backlash forced the President of Ghana to admit in September 2019 that the decision not to prosecute was a mistake on the part of the government.
Ghana faces many difficulties in maintaining good relations with China while dealing with the delicate domestic issue of illegal mining. In both public and media discourses, the conviction is that prosecution of foreign nationals will not only deter foreigners from mining illegally, but also send a clear message of the government’s commitment to fighting against the practice and its associated impact on the environment and human lives.
Conversely, conveniently deporting culprits without trial is not only a mockery of Ghana’s legal system and an act of condoning impunity but also a betrayal on the part of the government whose aim should be to protect the country’s resources and the interests of its people.
Black Livity China
blacklivitychina.com
The Dilemma of Chinese Gold Miners in Ghana
BY HAGAN SIBIRI
JANUARY 2, 2020
Ghana’s Gold Endowment and the Involvement of Chinese Miners
Ghana is endowed with vast reserves of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable. As the second largest gold miner in Africa, behind South Africa, Ghana is famous for its gold production and was once named the ‘Gold Coast’ because of the abundance of gold. Between 1493-1600, Ghana accounted for about 36% of the total world gold output. Also, between the first documentation of gold mining in 1493 up to 1997, Ghana extracted an estimated 80 million ounces of gold. The extraction of gold in Ghana is thus, an age-old phenomenon which has been carried out by local people using artisanal techniques known in local parlance as ‘galamsey’.
A key feature of Ghana’s gold is that small-scale mining accounts for about 30% of total gold output, employing about 3 million people directly and indirectly. The small-scale mining sector was legalized in 1989 for citizens while explicitly forbidding the involvement of foreigners. The legalization was done to formalize and regularize the sector for the benefit of Ghanaians by way of providing employment and contributing to the local economy. But since 2010, Ghana has become an attractive destination for foreign gold mercantilists, particularly those from China.
The relevant Ghanaian laws explicitly forbid foreigners from engagement in small-scale mining. The Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) [Section 83(a)] states that: “A license for small-scale mining operation shall not be granted to a person unless that person is a citizen of Ghana.”
The issue of Chinese gold miners in Ghana sparked national tension in 2013 when the London based Guardian Newspaper and the BBC News documented a perceived broad scale of illegal Chinese gold mining activities in Ghana, alongside allegations of human rights abuses. The media sensationalism of the issue led to strong opposition and resentment from the Ghanaian public, despite the significant economic impact of Chinese involvement including the massive jump in the production of gold from small-scale mines due to the introduction of new technology and machinery by Chinese that has transformed the small-scale mining sector. Notwithstanding, Chinese miners have since at times fallen into a direct violent confrontation with local miners who feel displaced by the perceived sophisticated method employed by the Chinese.
The resentment towards Chinese is manifested in the 2016 ‘Afrobarometer’ survey on the perception of China in Africa, which revealed that the perception of China as resource extractor is highly dominant in Ghana than any other African country. There has been resentment in the past with Chinese involvement in other gold rushes throughout history, notably, in the United States and Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries – both of which resulted in violent confrontations and strict immigration policies. It is also reminiscent of Chinese migrants to South Africa after the discovery of gold and diamonds in the 1870s and 1880s. The parallel contemporary trend in Ghana is equally alarming as sensationalism of the issue and the often demonization of Chinese in the media as ‘invaders’ due to the activities of a small number of Chinese miners has led to rising in general resentment towards Chinese.
The ‘Small Group’ of Chinese Miners
According to a report by the 21st Century Business Herald, translated from Chinese to English by the China-Africa Project, a unique eye for gold and the fancy stories of rags-to-riches of Chinese miners has been the primary motivator and driving force of Chinese arrival to Ghana for mining. A study by Crawford et al. in 2015 entailing the arrival from 2006 into the central area of alluvial gold mining in Ghana revealed that these small group of miners that have become known as the ‘Shanglin gang’ came predominantly from the ‘Shanglin County’ in ‘Guangxi Zhuang’ Autonomous Province of China. However, the first phase of small-scale Chinese miners to Ghana was in 1998 that comprised a group of miners from ‘Hunan’ Province of China. The ‘Hunan’ group expanded to around 300 miners and was in Ghana from 1998 to 2005, but did not make much profit and their business venture collapsed. The South China Morning Post in a 2013 report estimated that more than 50,000 Chinese gold miners (mostly from ‘Shanglin County’) have been to Ghana since 2005. The 21st Century Business Herald report in May 2013 also referred to as many as 50,000 ‘Shanglin County’ native gold miners alone in Ghana.
The New York Times in 2013 reported that concerned residents of ‘Shanglin’ have blamed the arrival on the local government for shirking its responsibility after years of encouraging the Ghanaian gold rush. Likewise, many Ghanaians also blame the government of Ghana for its weak immigration policy allowing the arrival of the miners. A detailed report by the Ghana Bureau of National Investigation in 2017, however, cited extensive collaboration between the miners and some chiefs and political figures in Ghana. The Bureau’s dossier is perhaps most revealing as it in part explains the arrival of Chinese in the sector that by law, is reserved for locals.
Ghana’s Response to the Issue
The menace of ‘illegal’ mining by both locals and foreign involvement (mainly Chinese) first became a contentious issue between 2012 and 2013. By 2013, the involvement of Chinese citizens had grown to such proportions it triggered a persistent hostile media coverage of conflicts between Chinese miners’ and local miners, as well as an unprecedented rate of environmental degradation. The media sensationalism on the issue led to the formation of an Inter-Ministerial Task Force in 2013 to deal with the canker. The military-style task force was primarily aimed at ‘flushing out’ foreign miners, and by mid-July 2013, about 4,592 Chinese nationals had been deported, as well as small numbers of other foreign nationals.
The campaign died naturally partly due to ineffective enforcement measures and low public and media attention afterward. A change of government in January 2017 ushered in perhaps the most vocal and unprecedented anti-illegal small-scale mining campaign in the country after almost four years of public silence, and since the failed first Inter-Ministerial anti-illegal mining task force in 2013. Championed by a Media Coalition (comprising the major media organizations in the country), and supported by bipartisan members of the legislative body of Ghana (parliament), as well as various Civil Society organizations and Faith-based groups, the government of Ghana was pressured to take immediate action.
In response, the government of Ghana launched another anti-illegal mining campaign. Yet another Inter-Ministerial task force was inaugurated by the President of Ghana with a mandate to enforce a ban on all forms of small-scale mining and develop a comprehensive strategy to guide the activities of small-scale miners. The task force in August 2017 inaugurated a heavily armed Joint Military Police Taskforce dubbed “Operation Vanguard” to clamp down on illegal small-scale mining in any form throughout the country. The task force in precisely a year later (August 2018) had conducted a total of 1,179 operations with over 1,370 arrests including 247 Chinese nationals. The media campaign and sensationalism got some foreign diplomatic backing from the Australian and the Israeli governments. Andrew Barnes (the Australian High Commissioner to Ghana), while acknowledging the economic, environmental, and health problems associated with illegal mining activities, applauded the campaign with a promised to support the effort. Likewise, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana (Ami Mel) in a statement declared Israel’s steadfast support and commitment to the ongoing campaign against ‘illegal’ mining, promising the State of Israel will help Ghana recover from the devastation wrecked the environment by the menace.
China’s Response and the Threat to Ghana-China Relations
The media sensationalism of Chinese involvement has become a worrying issue for both China and Ghana regarding their future relations. The official admonition by the Chinese Embassy in Ghana to the media and the Ghanaian government in April 2017 perhaps sums up how the issue of Chinese mining activities could affect the bilateral relations between the two countries. This diplomatic concern climaxes the contentious issue of Chinese mining activities in Ghana. The argument and a deep-seated concern by many ordinary Ghanaian are that the presence of the Chinese miners in the Small-scale mining sector reserved for locals is as a result of Ghanaian government unwillingness to act due to fears over its relations with China – a country that has become Ghana’s biggest trading partner and essential aid and investment partner over the years.
The arrest and deportation of several Chinese mine workers, as well as a police crackdown resulting in the death of a 16-year-old Chinese miner in October 2012, prompted the Chinese government to voice its serious concerns and reservations. A further series of arrests and deportations of Chinese miners in 2013 and a notable report by China’s state-owned China Daily in June 2013 concerning the detention and deportation of about 124 Chinese miners prompted yet another diplomatic concern between the Chinese and Ghanaian governments. A New York Times report noted a warning issued by the Chinese government regarding how the mining issue is a ‘disharmony’ with the bilateral relations between Ghana and China.
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In a nutshell, the issue of Chinese miners has provided a stern test to the bilateral relations between the two countries that have long been considered as a springboard for China’s African policy. Concerns and the attempts to resolve the issue diplomatically is not new. In April 2013 and May 2013, two important meetings were held between the government of Ghana and two separate delegations from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Province of China to deal with the tension that threatens to mar the excellent bilateral relations between the two. The parties committed to establishing a high-powered working committee to examine the circumstances that underpin the influx of Chinese miners in Ghana to fashion out an integrated roadmap to bring an end to the menace.
However, after the repatriation in July 2013 of over 4,500 Chinese nationals in a series of security swoops on unauthorized gold mine sites, the government of Ghana became skeptical of retaliatory measures from China. Reports of new tightening visa rules at the Chinese Embassy was seen as a counter-reaction by China. Although China rejected the idea that it has taken retaliation actions, the government still wondered whether such difficulties including the inability to access a $3 billion loan facility granted by the China Development Bank was related to the events surrounding Chinese miners.
A renewed series of further arrests involving Chinese nationals and the seizure of high-end mining equipment in 2017 led to an emergency meeting between the representatives of Ghana and China to discuss how both governments could collectively deal with the role and activities of Chinese nationals engaged in illegal mining. However, the Chinese mission not enthused with the vicious anti-Chinese sentiments in the media landscape issued a strongly worded statement cautioning Ghana and Ghanaian media. The statement noted the negative repercussion such as rising anti-Chinese and critical media reports could have on Ghana-China bilateral relations. In response, the Ghanaian government reiterated its commitment to ensuring robust relations between the two countries while reassuring Chinese investors that Ghana remains keen to encourage economic cooperation. The government subsequently caution against the creation of a non-existent diplomatic row between Ghana and China in the wake of the campaign. Ghana further maintained that the issue is not anti-Chinese campaign, but a warning that Chinese miners should respect the laws of Ghana.
Concluding Remarks
China is Africa’s most significant economic partner and a critical alternative aid and investment source. However, media sensationalism of Chinese resources interest has exposed China’s presence in Africa to skepticism and increasing resentment from some Africans. In Ghana, despite the encouraging Ghana-China bilateral relations over the years, the issue of Chinese small-scale miners has not only increased public resentment toward Chinese but at times presented tension and setback in the bilateral relations between the two countries. The bottom line, however, is that China’s influence and interest in Ghana regarding Chinese investments and aid has made it difficult for the menace involving Chinese nationals to be dealt with appropriately considering how strategic the economic cooperation between the two countries is at the current stage. Most importantly, the potential repercussions that a sharp reprimand from either side may have on their bilateral relationship is in line with the strategic interest of both sides.
Hagan Sibiri is a Ghanaian currently pursuing Doctoral program in International Politics at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai.
A shorter version of this article titled “Chinese miners illegal hunt for gold in Ghana” was first published in the East Asia Forum.
Hagan Sibiri is a PhD Candidate at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai.
However, this is a far better study - please read the last paragraph on the plight of migrant labourer.
07 Dec There and Back Again: Conceptualising the Chinese Gold Rush in Ghana
Posted at 10:06h in Analyses by Nicholas Loubere and Gordon Crawford
On 15 May 2013, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama announced the establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Task Force aimed at bringing ‘sanity’ to the country’s rapidly (and chaotically) expanding small-scale mining sector. Over the course of the next month, the army and police proceeded to ‘flush out’ and deport nearly 5,000 foreign nationals who were illegally engaging in small-scale mining—the vast majority of whom were Chinese, primarily originating from Shanglin County in the country’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. While there are still some reports of illegal miners setting up new operations ‘deep in the bush’, most of the estimated 50,000 Chinese that flooded into Ghana, mainly between 2008 and 2013, have either been deported or have left of their own accord.
This brief but intense episode has much to tell us about the perceptions and outcomes of large-scale global migrations, and the ways in which scarce and valuable resources are allocated in the Global South. At the same time, it provides a way of understanding what the increasingly large presence of China on the African continent means for labour and livelihoods in both places. The sudden influx of these small-scale miners to Ghana also draws parallels with Chinese involvement in other gold rushes throughout history. Most notably, the mass exoduses to the United States and Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—both of which resulted in violent confrontations, strict immigration policies, and the demonisation of the Chinese as ‘invaders’ by local labour movements. Indeed, in contemporary Ghana, as in previous gold rushes, the Chinese migrant miners have been implicitly depicted as a homogeneous mass that is working in unison, collectively benefiting from the extraction of Ghanaian gold at the expense of poorer segments of the local population, and having a uniform (primarily negative) impact on the environment, economy, and lives of local people. This essay will begin by examining the sudden arrival and equally sudden departure of small-scale Chinese miners in Ghana. It will then go on to raise important questions for future research related to China-Africa migration dynamics, the labour relations and inequality existing amongst the Chinese, and the allocation of the extracted resources back in China.
The Gold Rush
Ghana is the second largest gold producer in Africa, and artisanal gold mining has been a traditional indigenous activity in the country for centuries. Particularly over the past few decades, small-scale mining has become an increasingly important way for poor and marginal segments of Ghanaian society to improve their livelihoods by supplementing low returns from farming. In recognition of the importance of this activity for poor rural people, in 2006, the government specifically restricted the sector to Ghanaian citizens, making it illegal for foreign nationals to engage in any small-scale mining activities.
However, this attempt to reserve small-scale mining for Ghanaians was unsuccessful. From 2005, large numbers of Chinese miners began to arrive to Ghana, mostly from Shanglin County. Shanglin, whose population is primarily ethnically Zhuang (a minority group), has a long historical tradition of gold mining. Throughout the 1990s, Shanglin residents migrated domestically within China to engage in small-scale mining around the country. When the Chinese government tightened regulations on this type of activity, the Shanglin miners looked outward. In the late 2000s, stories of people ‘striking it rich’ in Ghana, combined with the increase in gold prices in 2008, resulted in a mass influx of Chinese miners establishing over 2,000 mining operations.
Most of the ‘Shanglin gang’ took up mining in the rural areas surrounding Kumasi, Obuasi, and Takoradi, compensating the owners of the land with usage fees, and often paying percentages to local government officials or tribal chiefs. In general, mining activities were financed by individual Chinese investors or small groups of partners, who borrowed and pooled larger sums from financial institutions in China in order to purchase excavators and large pumps for dredging. The miners then employed workers from China who were promised set monthly wages, and local Ghanaians who were paid daily at a substantially lower rate than the Chinese workers. The Chinese involvement in the sector has resulted in a huge jump in the production of gold from small-scale mines in Ghana. And at the height of the gold rush it was estimated that billions of yuan were being sent from Ghana to China—far more than the Ghanaian governmental revenue.
Collusion and Pushback
The sudden influx of Chinese miners, and the expansion of their small-scale mining operations, was facilitated through cooperation (or collusion) with Ghanaians, many of whom benefitted individually from their relationships with the Chinese. This situation led to the widespread perception—particularly in the media—that the mining phenomenon was feeding into corruption, and that these corrupt activities were the reason the government had largely ignored (or even protected) the illegal miners. In many cases this perception was entirely justified, with Chinese miners bribing officials to ‘turn a blind eye’ or paying-off local chiefs in order to illegally gain access to land for mining. For instance, Ghana Immigration Service officials allegedly enabled entry into the country and then provided (false) work permits to Chinese miners for a fee. Ghanaian small-scale miners also reported that, if challenged, Chinese miners would ‘threaten to call the minister or police commander,’ suggesting close links to high levels of government facilitated by bribes.
The Chinese mechanisation of the small-scale mining industry also had huge environmental impacts through the pollution of bodies of water and the clearing of large areas of agricultural land. The introduction of new technologies and mining teams—replacing traditional techniques—meant that the Chinese miners were able to extract much larger quantities of gold than their Ghanaian counterparts. The increasingly visible wealth of the Chinese miners, particularly of the main investors, unsurprisingly resulted in a narrative of resource theft. The Chinese were depicted as stealing a vital livelihood resource from marginal Ghanaians, while also extracting the country’s wealth and sending it back to China through illegal channels. In a 2014 interview conducted in Upper Denkyira East Municipality, a licensed Ghanaian concession holder who had worked with Chinese miners expressed the view that ‘gold was sent direct to China’ with ‘so many ways’ of doing so. He recounted one method where containers that brought machinery into the country were then used to smuggle gold back to China by cutting out part of the container, filling the inside with gold, and then re-welding it.
While most interactions between the Chinese and Ghanaians were collaborative in nature, the negative perception of the Chinese miners was also exacerbated by the widespread reporting of some violent conflicts that coincided with their arrival. As the operations successfully began extracting gold, they also became targets for local bandits and armed robbery. This prompted the Chinese miners to arm themselves—often with guns purchased illegally from the local police—and engage in firefights with would-be thieves; resulting in the deaths of both Chinese and Ghanaians. Finally, in mid-2013, the combination of these issues presented too large of a political challenge to the Ghanaian government, and President Mahama established the Task Force, stating: ‘The government will not allow their [the illegal miners] activities to cause conflict, dislocation, environmental degradation and unemployment when in fact the sector should rather benefit our communities and our country.’ With that, the Chinese gold rush in Ghana was largely brought to an inglorious end.
Conceptualising the Chinese Migrant Miner
So what does this tell us about the perception of Chinese migrant miners in Ghana, and the role of Chinese migration to the African continent more generally? While the story has been reported on extensively—primarily from Ghana—the picture that has been presented fails to shed light on a number of important aspects of this episode of mass migration, resource extraction, and wealth production (for some). In general, depictions of the Chinese miners in Ghana have been essentialised representations. The miners themselves are largely described as a homogenous group composed of individuals with the same ambitions and having the same potential to ‘strike it rich’. This perception of the Chinese as a uniform mass, rather than differentiated individuals and subgroups, follows classic tropes and popular representations of mass migrations in general and Chinese mining migration in particular, both historically and in contemporary discourse. Most notably—and notoriously—both the ‘Chinese Exclusion Act’ in the United States and the ‘White Australia Policy’ were the direct result of antagonism towards the sudden arrival of large numbers of Chinese miners, and their perceived ability to extract more gold than ‘local’ miners through collective effort. Moreover, it is well known that after the end of the gold rushes in the United States and Australia, the remaining Chinese were demonised by local labour movements and accused of undercutting wages. Similarly, the short-lived Chinese gold rush in Ghana has seen ‘the Chinese’ as a whole being blamed for causing widespread environmental degradation, feeding into corruption, increasing violence, stealing the livelihoods of poor Ghanaians, and capturing the country’s resources.
While these problematic issues arising from the sudden influx of Chinese miners and the rapid expansion of mining activities should certainly not be underestimated, the current depiction of the Chinese in Ghana as a singular group tends to obscure as much as enlighten. In particular, these representations fail to explore the migratory and class dynamics that gave rise to the exodus in the first place. They also turn a blind eye to the ways in which different types of Chinese miners benefitted or lost out, and ignore the developmental impacts back in China. Little is known about the Chinese miners themselves, other than the fact that they mainly come from a single poor county in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Even less is known about the labour relations that operated within the small mining groups, or the social processes within China that gave rise to the wider migration phenomenon. While the mining groups are often described as collaborative efforts of ‘partners’ investing together; hierarchical structures have also been observed, with individuals or small groups hiring wage labourers from China. This points to the likelihood that the individual Chinese miners in Ghana have benefited in significantly different ways—with some potentially even being exploited. After all, research on small-scale mining within China has shown that the contribution to the livelihoods of miners is highly differentiated, with wealthier investors profiting at a much higher rate than more marginalised individuals. Research has also documented the ways in which poor Chinese migrant workers are often exploited through the withholding (and sometimes non-payment) of wages by ‘labour subcontractors’ (baogongtou) operating in townships and villages.
Disentangling the Chinese Miner
Ultimately, this points to the need for research following up on the Shanglin miners who were chased out of Ghana three years ago. Future research should look to examine who these people are, how they went to Ghana in the first place, how the spoils of this gold rush have been distributed amongst the Chinese participants in this story, and what the remittances meant for socioeconomic development in marginal Shanglin County and its ethnically Zhuang population. By lumping the Chinese together, ignoring the different experiences of the miners, and disregarding the fact that these Chinese are themselves a minority group in their own country, we get a distorted view of this historical episode that does not properly reflect the developmental processes and relations at play. Rather than seeing the complex webs of relationships connecting peripheral rural China with the margins of Ghana—and thus producing patterns of resource extraction, accumulation, and inequality between, within and across the people involved in both places—the Chinese as a whole are depicted as uniformly (negatively) impacting on the environment, Ghanaian politics, and the livelihoods of the poorest. In this way, the Chinese miners are ascribed with causal abilities—they are seen as the origin of the negative outcomes rather than a symptom of wider systemic issues. This shifts attention away from the labour relations and unequal power that exist within the Chinese ‘mass’, resulting in the production of winners and losers among the miners themselves. It also obscures the processes implicit within global capitalism that prompt large numbers of precarious and marginal people to move from one place to another—and sometimes back again—in search of secure livelihoods amid increasingly low returns.
Photo Credits: Small-scale miners in Ghana, by Francis Carmine. This article was originally published on the third issue of Made in China.
