Why Many Chinese Firms Failed to Take Root in Africa
A Chinese Engineer's First-Hand Account of Business Adaptation in Africa
In the wake of Belt and Road Initiative investments, Chinese state-owned enterprises have launched numerous projects across Africa. However, due to limited access to on-site interviews and language barriers, many nuanced details of these projects often go undocumented. Even within China, these complex undertakings are frequently reduced to brief news reports upon completion, making first-hand observations from Chinese workers increasingly valuable.
In his latest piece published on
(文化纵横), Cao Fengze shared his observation and analysis of the challenges Chinese firms face in their localization efforts in Africa. Dr.Cao is a Tsinghua University alumnus, and he was the candidate for Tsinghua's Persons of the Year in 2021. After graduation, he joined Power Construction Corporation of China as an Africa-based engineer. Now, he’s also a renowned social media influencer in China, sharing his observations in Africa. Thanks to Cao’s authorization and the pictures he took, I’d able to share his analysis in today’s episode.In short, he believes Senior management has an overly optimistic view of localization, attempting to maximize efficiency with minimal investment, which ultimately shifts the entire burden onto ground-level operations. While localization benefits Chinese enterprises' long-term development, its effectiveness is difficult to measure in the short term and even harder to translate into concrete performance metrics. Consequently, front-line managers, facing dual pressures from performance evaluations and daily operations, are forced to sacrifice these hard-to-quantify localization initiatives in favor of meeting other performance indicators.
Moreover, many Chinese expatriates often use economic development as their primary metric of assessment, making it difficult for them to understand and appreciate African societies from a cultural perspective. As a result, even after years of working in Africa, most Chinese nationals struggle to develop a deep sense of connection with local communities. For them, their African experience is primarily motivated by economic interests—whether pursuing high salaries or business opportunities. This utilitarian approach reduces their time in Africa to merely a challenging but lucrative career phase rather than a meaningful life experience worth cherishing.
Right now, Chinese companies are still figuring out how to go local, and setting up industrial parks truly seems to be a practical stepping stone. The bottom line is that localization isn't something that happens overnight - it's more of a marathon than a sprint. Whether it's hiring local workers, developing local management teams, or getting comfortable with local culture, the journey toward real integration with local communities takes time and consistent effort.
Below is the translation of Cao’s article. Titled “The Long March Toward Localization: Chinese Enterprises' Journey Starting with Translation” 中资企业的属地化持久战——从翻译谈起 First published by Beijing Cultural Review
▍A Case Study in the Struggles of Localization - The Language Barrier That Won't Budge
Even after three full years working in Africa, I still get a massive headache whenever I need to meet with local clients or communicate with local engineers—and we're not even talking about some complex, obscure African language, just plain old English.
To be fair, my English isn't bad at all. I excelled in English during my school years. During my Ph.D., I could skillfully write academic papers in English and engage in lively discussions with peers at international conferences. Yet this doesn't change the reality that in meetings with African or Middle Eastern colleagues, I find myself staring blankly, helplessly waiting for meetings to end, only to slink away afterward to review the meeting minutes. That indescribable sense of frustration is something I'll probably never forget. What's worse is that even after three years of these meetings, I've made zero progress—still completely lost in every meeting, far from being able to handle things independently. I've started to understand those "struggling students" who sat in the back row during my school days—back then, in my naivety, I was just annoyed at their "lack of effort." Now that I've become one of those "struggling students" myself, I finally understand that this feeling of complete helplessness, of having no way to improve, is more soul-crushing than the hardest physical labor.
I thought this fate was inescapable until recently, when I joined a private enterprise delegation on a project survey in Mali, West Africa. Being a French-speaking country, the locals either speak French or their native Bambara, with virtually no English speakers—making communication completely impossible for me. The delegation simply assigned me a Chinese interpreter. He was Malian, had studied in China, and while his Chinese wasn't perfectly fluent, it was manageable if we spoke slowly enough. I took him along to meetings with local government officials. Unexpectedly, these meetings turned out to be the best work experience in my thirty years of life, not only accomplishing all my tasks but also rekindling my confidence in my work. I'm no longer afraid of any formal communication with foreigners. More importantly, throughout the trip, the cost of hiring an interpreter was minimal—insignificant compared to the delegation's total expenses. Yet this trivial expense greatly improved work efficiency and even helped us gather information beyond our initial expectations.
You'd think that as a Tsinghua University Ph.D., my English would be far better than most overseas staff and managers. If even I find it so challenging to attend local meetings without an interpreter, other managers must find it even more daunting. The resulting work mistakes are inevitable. So why does something as ordinary as English—something we all studied in school—cause so many Chinese enterprise managers overseas such headaches and even hinder their work?
At its core, establishing serious and effective communication with local society isn't as simple as we imagine. In most African countries, for many people, colonial languages like English and French are actually second languages. While they can use these languages relatively fluently, they prefer their native tongues in everyday life, like Swahili in Tanzania, Bemba in Zambia, or Bambara in Mali. Just as Chinese people often end up speaking "Chinglish," they too incorporate their own accents and grammatical habits when using English - habits that differ from standard English, let alone Chinese. This means that when Africans and Chinese communicate, both parties go through two translations, neither of which is proficient. After these double translations, the crucial meaning gets lost in translation. What's worse is that formal meetings are both serious and important occasions with highly technical content - even if conducted in Chinese, reaching an understanding and agreement would be challenging enough. How can managers spare extra mental energy just to understand the language? This adds an enormous unnecessary workload for all participants. In theory, since you know English and I know English, our communication should be simple. But in reality, during high-pressure work situations, this so-called "knowing English" has little practical value. The language barrier becomes an extra burden on top of already difficult work - the final straw that breaks the camel's back.
For Chinese enterprise managers, intense communication with host country personnel is inevitable, and there's no way around the language issue. In manufacturing industries, our managers often come from technical backgrounds - many have limited education and don't speak foreign languages at all; some are educated but focused primarily on technical expertise, with language skills being their weakness. Language is the foundation for all business operations, so senior leadership has long recognized this stubborn problem and taken measures to improve Chinese staff's language abilities, mainly including:
Increasing language training for overseas management personnel. For instance, hiring online teachers to conduct language training after work hours, taking up employees' rest time.
Screening overseas management candidates based on language ability, only selecting those who meet language requirements and rejecting those who don't.
Establishing language assessment systems tied to salary, with regular evaluations and corresponding rewards or penalties based on results.
These measures aren't hard to come up with. I've asked around, and not just our company, but most large-scale Chinese enterprises in Africa, especially state-owned ones, have similar systems to improve Chinese managers' language skills. However, these systems haven't achieved the results senior management expected. Why haven't these measures worked as imagined? If leadership would just try to see things from ground-level staff's perspective, it's not hard to understand:
Overseas managers have limited energy. Regardless of industry, overseas managers generally carry heavy workloads and responsibilities. Employees are already working overtime and severely lack rest. They barely have enough energy for their primary duties, let alone study.
People have limited natural abilities. Most overseas managers are just ordinary people with average aptitude. On top of already mastering technical and management work, to further learn a foreign language to the point of fluent communication requires an enormous investment of time and energy.
In fact, this mindset of pressuring middle and lower-level employees to improve operational efficiency at low or no cost is quite common in today's corporate management. This "something for nothing" approach violates basic economic principles and is logically impossible to achieve, let alone ethically sound.
▍Why Isn't the Old-School Method of Hiring Interpreters More Popular?
In addressing language issues for overseas staff, the "old-fashioned" approach of hiring local interpreters sometimes proves more effective. The reason is simple: business meetings are already tense situations. When both parties must use their shaky second language, it creates extra barriers in both expressing themselves and understanding others, further increasing tension and mutual distrust. However, with an interpreter as a buffer, both sides can express themselves fluently in their native language, naturally easing tensions and making communication smoother. Without the language pressure, everyone can focus more on the actual content of the meeting, greatly improving efficiency.
From a pure cost perspective, hiring local Chinese interpreters in African countries isn't expensive. Even for experienced interpreters fluent in Chinese, the cost is far lower than hiring interpreters from China and much cheaper than all those "improve Chinese staff's language skills" measures I mentioned earlier. Beyond significantly improving communication efficiency and reducing the burden on Chinese managers, hiring local interpreters has deeper positive impacts that many high-level executives of Chinese overseas enterprises might not fully appreciate:
Compared to regular local employees who don't speak Chinese, Chinese-speaking interpreters tend to be more loyal to Chinese companies. Interpreters who've studied Chinese systematically understand Chinese culture far better than average local employees. Language reflects thought and culture - when you study a country's language long enough, you naturally adopt their thinking patterns and identify more with their culture. It's human nature. Therefore, these Chinese-fluent interpreters are better suited for long-term development within the company.
Local-born interpreters understand local culture in ways Chinese staff never could. Increasing their use can greatly expand Chinese companies' scope and depth of information gathering. Foreign business managers inherently face many disadvantages in host countries, many of which can't be directly overcome. Taking a different approach - strengthening these interpreters' professional training and having them assist Chinese managers in gathering information and dealing with locals - helps reduce potential friction and greatly improves work efficiency and success rates, preventing Chinese enterprises from operating "in the dark."
Long-term, increasing employment of local Chinese-speaking interpreters or favoring Chinese-speaking candidates when hiring local staff encourages host country youth to learn Chinese actively, increases Chinese language prevalence, and even enhances recognition of Chinese culture in host countries. This benefits Chinese enterprises' sustainable development in host countries over the long run.
In essence, hiring more local Chinese speakers, starting them as interpreters, and gradually developing them into mid-to-senior management is both advantageous and practical for overseas Chinese enterprises' long-term development. It's essential infrastructure-building for any Chinese company hoping to develop abroad in the long term. So, with such a cost-effective solution offering long-term benefits right here, why do so many Chinese companies insist on "ignoring what's close at hand and seeking far afield"?
From upper management's perspective, there's an unrealistic optimism about localized management. Many state-owned enterprises or oversized private companies, due to excessive bureaucratic layers and complex structures, become quite bloated in actual operation. This distorts operational goals and management evaluation methods, making the "ability to shake things up" an important performance metric for top executives. Meanwhile, top leaders, long disconnected from ground operations, can no longer empathize with frontline struggles. Even amid complaints from below, even when losing money, it's still counted as leadership "achievement." From their view, they need only issue a few directives, and the ground staff should diligently transform themselves into "Africa experts," solving localization challenges effortlessly. Wouldn't simply hiring interpreters suggest our company's localization efforts are lagging behind?
But from the perspective of ground-level managers of Chinese enterprises, it's a different story altogether. While directly learning the language is certainly torturous, hiring interpreters doesn't mean an easier life - it brings its own set of extra work. Given the enormous cultural gaps between China and Africa, plus their experience managing an extremely hardworking and compliant older generation of Chinese workers, these frontline managers feel extremely uncomfortable with local African employees, developing resistance and even labeling locals as "lazy," "bad," or "thieves." Additionally, different lifestyle habits sometimes lead local employees to form "cliques," creating barriers with Chinese staff, further intensifying Chinese managers' distrust. Thus, they often prefer hiring expensive interpreters from China or even handling things themselves rather than hiring local interpreters to work and live alongside them - even though using local interpreters would be far easier than doing it themselves. Moreover, after hiring local interpreters, Chinese managers' daily work inevitably becomes somewhat dependent on these local interpreters. To some extent, interpreters monopolize communication channels between Chinese management and local society. If Chinese frontline managers lack sufficient business expertise to maintain checks and balances, these interpreters can easily abuse their power for rent-seeking, causing losses for the company. This makes many Chinese managers wary of hiring local interpreters, or any local staff for that matter. The end result? They neither learn the language nor hire interpreters, just struggling through what work they can do, and when it becomes unbearable, they pack up and return to China, leaving their mess for others to clean up.
This severely limits the hiring and utilization of local interpreters. Actually, these so-called obstacles are either based on subjective prejudices and management misconceptions that should be corrected promptly or are relatively easy difficulties to overcome. If we hired slightly more interpreters and established a ranking system among them, creating supervision and checks and balances, the power rent-seeking issue could be significantly mitigated. This is basic management practice.
However, for ground-level staff under intense work pressure, any additional workload becomes overwhelming. Their work aspirations quickly collapse into "work more, finish earlier" - just getting the job done to return to China sooner, with zero interest in any long-term foundation building. Under current work intensities, necessary labor already consumes too much frontline managers' energy, making localization development - though important but not urgent - the natural sacrifice.
▍From "Interpreters" to the Bigger Picture: The Long Journey of Localization
Countless historical experiences prove that regardless of era, region, political system, or social trends, any transnational business - whether economic trade or non-economic operations - must rely on host country personnel to succeed. We must clearly recognize that differences between civilizations can never be completely bridged. A foreigner, even after living locally for decades, can never fully integrate into local circles; some barriers will always exist. As long as overseas enterprises want to develop in host countries, they must gradually expand their local workforce and progressively entrust authority to reliable local employees to conduct frontline operations. In most African countries, a regular housemaid's monthly salary is just a few hundred yuan, and university graduates only earn two to three thousand. Increasing local hiring can significantly improve local goodwill toward the company while substantially reducing Chinese staff's workload - all at a relatively low cost. As mentioned earlier, expanding hiring alongside thoughtful management methods can help create balance among local employees, increasing Chinese managers' effectiveness when working with employees.
However, increasing local employment also places higher demands on Chinese enterprise managers. To be effective, they must possess sufficient professional qualities and local talent management abilities, understand local society well enough, and be proficient in language. Only then can they effectively constrain and manage local talent for our use and confidently appoint local senior management without worrying about losing control over company operations and long-term development. From this perspective, many Chinese enterprise leaders' efforts to enhance ground-level managers' language abilities and strengthen their overall quality aren't wrong in principle. The poor results aren't due to wrong direction but rather unrealistic expectations and excessive haste.
Whether state-owned or private, most Chinese overseas enterprises are currently at an early development stage compared to British or French companies. Economically, Chinese enterprises mostly operate in the middle and lower levels of the industrial chain - work is heavy, easily offends others, yet profit margins are low. Culturally, Chinese overseas personnel haven't yet developed a mindset that identifies with, takes root in, and loves the host country. Our current generation of Chinese people tends toward “mechanistic materialism” and cultural struggles to truly accept economically less developed Africa. Thus, most Chinese in Africa, regardless of how long they stay, find it difficult to identify with this less-developed society deeply. Most come to Africa with one purpose - to earn as much money as possible, then return home without looking back. They have no interest in African society and no desire to communicate with locals, counting days with their fingers until they can leave. Even after years or decades in Africa, as long as there's Chinese food available, they're unwilling to try local cuisine. African time for them is merely a grueling but high-paying job, or a high-risk but high-return business opportunity, but never a lifestyle worth remembering. Clearly, how deeply Chinese enterprises composed of such personnel can truly "take root in Africa" in the long term is questionable. In contrast, Europeans in Africa are often people who genuinely love African life, coming to escape their cold homeland and enjoy sunshine and simplicity. Therefore, to a large extent, Chinese and European enterprises have fundamentally different philosophies in Africa.
Given this context, we must clearly recognize that localization in Africa is an immensely challenging task. If we want to gradually expand Chinese business operations in Africa and help enterprises establish lasting roots there, we must be pragmatic, developing step by step from a modest starting point, letting time work its magic rather than expecting overnight transformation. Simply criticizing Chinese staff, managers, and investors for being "xenophobic" or "lacking initiative" does nothing to solve the problem. What we really should do is provide these Chinese personnel - who don't identify with Africa - a relatively comfortable cultural and natural environment, minimizing their internal resistance and pressure, allowing them to reduce their psychological barriers and adapt to Africa gradually. On this foundation, we can then gradually increase their interaction with local society, helping them progressively understand, comprehend, and ultimately identify with African culture.
The "interpreter" issue I've discussed at length is a perfect example. Eventually, of course, we hope every Chinese manager can skillfully use local languages, enabling Chinese staff to navigate Africa comfortably as true "Africa experts" - that would be genuine "localization." But under current circumstances, directly removing the interpreter link and throwing Chinese managers into the local language environment is too big a leap. For now, extensively hiring interpreters should be a necessary step in our long journey toward localization.
In practice, there are many similar examples, with industrial parks being particularly typical. Currently, there's strong information asymmetry between China and Africa. Many Chinese enterprises want to invest in Africa but have major concerns about security and building relationships with various local powers. As someone who has lived in Africa long-term, I see many of these concerns as unnecessary, but we can't force Chinese enterprises to abandon their worries and invest in Africa. Here, "industrial parks" serve as a very practical intermediate model. We can first negotiate with African governments to designate certain areas as semi-enclosed Chinese enterprise parks. Providing security and centralized management for parks is clearly easier and more efficient than managing scattered enterprises, helping alleviate Chinese investors' security concerns and relationship anxieties. For ordinary Chinese employees, maintaining Chinese lifestyles and work rhythms in semi-enclosed parks clearly creates less pressure than direct interaction with African society.
True, in the long run, companies operating in these semi-enclosed industrial parks might be at a slight disadvantage when it comes to business expansion and local integration compared to those directly engaging with African society. However, for the present moment, establishing secure and stable industrial parks overseas will undoubtedly accelerate Chinese companies' international expansion. Years down the line, once Chinese overseas businesses reach a certain scale and maturity, standout companies that adapt well to local society will naturally emerge and flourish within local communities. At that point, these industrial parks will have served their historical purpose.
▍Being Practical - An Eternal Principle
Whether it's actively hiring local interpreters or establishing Chinese industrial parks, the core principle remains the same: accept current realities, take practical measures, and progress step by step, rather than expecting to transform a Chinese company into a thoroughly African one instantly.
We must recognize that compared to Western companies from Britain, France, and others, Chinese companies venturing overseas face significant challenges in many areas. Unlike economic gaps that can be quickly closed or even reversed, localization requires gradual development. Building harmony between Chinese and African employees, Chinese people's growing familiarity with and acceptance of African culture, earning local goodwill, and establishing market presence and brand recognition - all these require patient, persistent effort. They can't be rushed. This might take one or two generations of dedicated work, even fundamental shifts in our deepest cultural mindsets.
Yet we should also understand that no matter how complex and thorny these problems may be, they can ultimately be solved. But these solutions must align with current realities and progress gradually - there's no room for impatience. We need to replace the notion of "achieving everything in one go" with "success doesn't have to happen in my time." Both the expectation of instant success and the assumption of inevitable failure are misguided.
The localization of Chinese enterprises is inevitably a long-term journey. It requires persistence, patience, and a steady commitment to progress, one step at a time.
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