The Influence Of Chinese State Capital And Government Of Zambia On Local Labor Relations In The Context Of Neo-Liberalism

With the increasing of Chinese foreign direct investment, the appearance of Chinese state capitalism in Africa has caught the eye of the world. Some people defame Chinese State-owned-enterprises as a symbol of "Neo-colonialism" and call Chinese managers as "worst investors". The myth of Chinese state capital causes lots of confusion and misunderstanding. However, what exactly is Chinese capital doing in Africa now? Why they are always targeted by western media as bad investors even though all the Chinese enterprises are doing business according to the "non-intervention" rules? For a country like Zambia, its colonized assets gave it a simple national economic structure in a neo-liberalist world economy. After its economic and trade liberalization under the pressure of international institutions, what did this dual-liberalization leave for Zambia’s labor? There’re a lot of troubles and conflicts among feeble Zambian government, injured labor and young but powerful Chinese state capital. What role is Zambian government playing between Chinese capital and Zambian labor as a mediator?Taking NFC Africa Mining PLC and Zambia China Textile Limited as examples, this article is trying to argue that in the context of a neo-liberalist world economy, the complicated labor relations in Zambia is the result of the influence of both Zambian government and Chinese state capital. For Zambian government, It’s hard to be an effective mediator between local labor and Chinese investors. Due to the limits of the ability of Zambian government, it could only choose one industry to fix the labor disputes and to maintain the foreign investment in the same time. On the other hand, for Chinese state capital in Zambia, "resource-seeking " is just part of their goal. In other words, Chinese state capital is looking for a optimal combination of its investment including political, economic and resource interests.