Author: Adams Bodomo, C. Pajancic.

In the last 10 years, much research has gone into finding answers to key questions about the African presence in Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). We now have fairly good answers to questions like why Africans go to China, the major cities Africans live in and visit, what they do there, and how they are received by the Chinese state and the Chinese people. What has, however, been elusive to date is calculating fairly exact or accurate numbers about Africans in China. Apart from issues about the usefulness of such an enterprise, there are a number of reasons that make this an arduous task, including the fact that accurate and realistic official records hardly exist on the numbers of foreigners in China, the preponderance of 'qualitative' research does not allow for accurate extrapolations of Africans in China based on extensive questionnaire surveys, and the very nature of the linguistic phrase ‘Africans in China’ may cause confusion - whether it means Africans permanently living in China or whether the term includes those on frequent visits as well.