By Josh Gartner

As expatriates have flooded into China in recent years, pockets of the country have developed a distinctly colonial feel. In the trendiest parts of Shanghai the nightlife is dominated by foreigners living the semi-Chinese experience, much as some British did in Africa and India during years gone by. True, colonialism brings to mind a military imposition, something decidedly missing from modern China, but there is nonetheless an uncomfortable reality that is plain to see.

Much has been made of the huge swaths of traditional housing that have been demolished to make room for high rises in Beijing (and elsewhere), but how much of that is driven by the market for upscale ‘western-style’ housing? Big money is being by Chinese investors (many of whom have gotten shady loans), but often foreigners are the ones shelling out the yuan for them. My building in Beijing’s Dongzhimen area is probably 10-15% foreign, while the neighboring (and somewhat newer) complex is closer to 50 or 60%. Just outside my 15th floor window are the remnants of what was once a larger, more vibrant hutong (traditional neighborhood). The neat rows of single-story houses sit just to the east, meaning that by noon they are literally ensconced in our shadow. Just beyond them is a block of communist-style 7-floor buildings littered with the character 拆, which as everyone out here knows, denotes that a building has been picked for demolition.

Even in some second tier cities foreign domination is setting in for better or worse. In Dalian dozens of Japanese companies have established call centers taking advantage of the foreign language skills of local Chinese there as well as the city’s proximity to Japan. Certain neighborhoods are lined with Japanese restaurants that do not even have Chinese menus. Call it economic colonialism if you will.

And that’s just what you could argue is happening in the western half of Sichuan Province’s Chengdu. There are estimated to be more than 100 Fortune 500 companies with offices in the city, including Intel which invested nearly 400 million dollars there in its last round of China-binging (the deal now pales in comparison to its Dalian project). With that increased foreign presence, so too has the selection of bars, restaurants and hotels serving the re-located employees. Once one of the most traditional cities in the country, it now has one of the larger expat communities.

You may well argue that the good coming out of all of these developments far outweighs the negatives. And you would almost certainly be correct. Noted economists like Joseph Stiglitz have been extremely impressed with China’s ability to tweak the free market model to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Yet I am not arguing that FDI is bad, but rather using it to point out a broader overall trend. The inflow of investment, even as it reaches the point of irrational exuberance is undoubtedly a good thing.

The real question I am trying to look at is how well foreigners have integrated into a generally homogenized society (although one that is not nearly as much so as people generally believe). Think about the immigration debates in England, Germany, France and the US. Xenophobes have often cited the reluctance to learn the local language and customs to justify anti-immigrant sentiment.

In China efforts to ‘sinofy’ the foreign population is rarely given a second though. There is little push on either the side of locals or Westerners. Instead, most expat life in China takes place within the confines of familiarity. Even those who have made the effort to learn about the country and its culture often retreat to their own world of comfort, with western DVDs and bars, their Chinese ayis cleaning up after them, and local waiters and waitresses bringing them food.

Does that make us bad people? Certainly not. However the comfortable expat lifestyle in China still clearly hints of colonialism. Certainly it is less overt than what we have seen in years past around the world, and cultural hegemony has still not set in the way some might believe. And yet despite everything that rationally tells me nothing is wrong, there is nonetheless a lingering feeling in my mind that something is not quite right either. Perhaps the real problem is that I am apt to mistake liberal guilt for colonialism.

Josh Gartner, China Expat’s Daily Tea Leaves
ChinaExpat.com, ChinaExpat.com/blog/josh