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The fact that Xu Ding Qiang is high up in the construction site hierarchy is shown by his clothes: work trousers, safety boots, safety helmet, safety vest. Not all workers carry this here. But the 47-year-old has an important job.
Xu heads the electrical and plumbing installations at the future stadium of the Ethiopian national football team. Like a spaceship, the shell protrudes from the inner-city tangle of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
Xu rushes up the ranks, where up to 60,000 spectators are expected to sit. On the top floor he enters a dimly lit toilet room. Ten toilets of about one thousand, which arise here, the light does not work yet, the floor tiles are blind from the construction dust. A colleague talks to him in the dialect of Jiangsu Province in eastern China, where they both come from. Xu listens, he stands with legs apart, arms crossed over his chest.
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
Xu and his colleague at a construction meeting
The two specialists work for the China State Construction Engineering Company, CSCEC for short, one of the largest construction companies in the world. The future Adey Abeba Stadium, whose roof should look like the shell of a primeval lizard, is one of the flagship projects of the Chinese state-owned company. His workers are also building a glamorous new headquarters for the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in Addis and the tallest African skyscraper in Egypt.
The CSCEC is just one of many state-owned and private companies in China that have been building new skyscrapers, roads, train tracks, stadiums and dams at breakneck speed in Africa for years. Between 2000 and 2017, African states are said to have borrowed around $ 143 billion from China's government, banks and entrepreneurs, the China-Africa research group at Johns Hopkins University estimates.
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Chinese in Addis Ababa: bunk beds and yeast dumplingsWho are the ones who are driving this construction boom? What brings you to Africa? How do you live there?
Xu has finished his tour of the toilets and leans against a bare concrete parapet of the stadium, in front of which extends a city panorama: grass and bushes where sports and parking spaces are still to emerge, behind houses of various sizes and in the distance misty hills. "If that were China," says Xu, "it would look much tidier here."
The sanitary chief can win little from the Ethiopian capital. He leaves the fenced stadium area only two or three times a week to buy snacks for his staff or equipment missing from the construction site. Although Addis Ababa is considered very safe compared to other major African cities. But Xu does not walk around town, and he does not walk alone. He has heard of other Chinese who have been attacked. "I'm a little scared," he says.
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
An estimated more than 200,000 Chinese workers are currently working in Africa for Chinese and foreign companies. Many move from country to country, just like Xu. Before coming to Addis, he worked at the new port in neighboring Djibouti. Before that he was in Germany, Spain and Greenland, he says.
The global Chinese migrant workers often stay among themselves. They live in temporary barracks or blocks of flats, communicate with the local workers in a jargon of Mandarin, English and the local language and usually have little to do with the population of their host country.
There are also those who settled in Ethiopia, found a wife and had children, perhaps opened a shop or a restaurant. But most people will sooner or later move home to their families. On foreign construction sites they toil mainly because of the money.
Xu accepted the job in Ethiopia two years ago, because he was curious about something new - and because he earns twice as much here as he does at home and gets lodging and meals. For this he left his wife and two children in Jiangsu and moved into a barracks next to the stadium. Now he surfs the net in the evening, watches Chinese films and then sleeps in a metal bunk bed.
Xu's life is little more than work. He has hardly seen anything of the country since his arrival two years ago. But he likes the Ethiopian climate because it hardly rains. Rain is impractical on the construction site.
His position as a plumber and electrician has helped Xu at least to a single room. Workers of lower rank sleep eight in a room. Xus accommodation has room for a desk that looks like it's made-to-yourself, and for cable reels that pile up on the bare concrete floor next to the bed. Xu has placed three pairs of shoes on the welded-in rolls, next to the carton of dried seaweed. There is no wardrobe.
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
Accommodation of Chinese workers
China's involvement on the continent is clearly a win-win situation for Xu and many of his colleagues. "We help African countries to develop," he says. China brings skills, skilled labor and surplus materials to Africa to build infrastructure and build new trade relations. This benefited all sides. When Xu talks about it, he talks about growth and business. Words such as colonization or debt trap do not appear in his narrative.
You can find that one-sided. But this way of thinking is not outlandish. Up to two hundred workers from CSCEC and Chinese subcontractors and at least three times as many Ethiopian workers have been working in the stadium for three years. The men form teams: A Chinese instructs several Ethiopians.
The roles are clearly divided, the social gradient is obvious: the employees of CSCEC wear protective helmets, solid shoes and logo-printed vests, their Ethiopian employees - as well as the colleagues of Chinese subcontractors - often only jeans, sweaters, light shoes and no helmet , Can this unequal cooperation work?
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
Meaza Alemu, 23, cooks for the Chinese workers and says, "I like working here"
In a basement of the stadium, Abdullah Abdulrahman, 18, has straight tiles in a washroom. He comes from the countryside and asked for work at the steel gate of the stadium a few months ago, as did most of the locals who help out here. He is happy that he deserves something and learns something on top of that. "I like working for Chinese," he says.
Similarly, the young Ethiopians, who prepare the Chinese food for the foreign workers in the kitchen, and the Ethiopians, who are straightening the sand in the arena, on which roll turf is supposed to lie. They also express themselves positively when no Chinese is listening.
Only one person complains that he would like to earn more. But he still does not change the job, because it is better to work here than on Ethiopian construction sites. Although sometimes roar a Chinese superior to him, the man tells. But that could happen to local bosses as well.
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
Site manager Chen Yu
Chen Yu leads the construction site and speaks openly about the difficulties his job entails. "The biggest problem," says the 37-year-old, "is Ethiopian morale, and most do not like working overtime." A Chinese man works nine to ten a day, an Ethiopian usually only eight hours, and if he is late in the morning and therefore gets his salary cut, he gets into Chen's office afterwards to complain.
Any Ethiopian who is ambitious in his job can earn a raise, says the manager. But that would be very few. Most of them would have virtually no manual skills and it would be tedious and expensive to make them for the job. He can not rule out that his Chinese employees lose their temper, says Chen.
The studied civil engineer looks critically at the African country and its people - on the one hand. But he feels, he says, also respect and admiration for the Ethiopian culture. "Ethiopians are more spiritual and less materialistic than Chinese, and they look happy, even if they do not have much."
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
Safety briefing in the stadium
Around five translators work on the site to clarify misunderstandings that can arise from different ways of thinking and traditions. In addition, manager Chen and his staff try to stay out of the cultural and political interests of the host country as best they can.
At 6:30 pm this morning, all of the Chinese skilled workers took part in one of the usual safety briefings in the stadium. They lined up in a row under the stands, with helmets on their heads and hands in their pockets, listening to a superior.
He has told them that a few days ago the Ethiopian army chief and a provincial governor were shot dead. That in this country ethnic groups are in conflict with each other. And that it is therefore important to be neutral towards all sides. Tipping, according to the supervisor, should therefore not be given. That could arouse envy and resentment in others.
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State-mandated neutrality is also one reason why African leaders are so fond of doing business with Chinese. It sounds like a dream: a big investor who helps poor countries to get up without critical questions and demands, as Europeans like to do before they spend money.
Installation chief Xu and site supervisor Chen do not want to comment that the Ethiopian football team ranked 150 out of 211 Fifa-ranked teams, and that the gigantic downtown stadium they're building now looks like lavish symbolism.
And what could happen if Ethiopia and other developing countries can not repay Chinese loans? How much is the economic dependency already reflected in a political one? To this end, Chen and Xu express only government-compliant. China, unlike the West, has never colonized another country, chief of construction Chen says. "We all want to grow together."
Heike Klovert / SPIEGEL ONLINE
In such rooms four to eight workers sleep in bunk beds
Lunch break. Chen has been seated in the wide leather chair in his office, Xu has retreated to his room. He wants to take a nap in his bunk bed before returning to the unfinished lavatories. Soon, Xu will return home for a few days, to his children, his wife and the Chinese snacks he misses so much. Then he wants to come back to Addis Ababa. The stadium is not finished yet.
Then Xu's world will shrink back to the size of not much more than a football field for many months. But he says that does not bother him. "We do not think much about our lifestyle, we're only here to work."
This article is part of the project Global Society, for which our reporters report from four continents. The project is long-term and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
What is the project Global Society?
Under the title Global Society, reporters from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe will be reporting on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development. The reportages, analyzes, photo galleries, videos and podcasts appear in the Politics Department of SPIEGEL. The project is long-term and will be supported over three years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
Are the journalistic contents independent of the foundation?
Yes. The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.
Do other media have similar projects?
Yes. Major European media such as "The Guardian" and "El País" have created similar sections on their news pages with "Global Development" or "Planeta Futuro" with the support of the Gates Foundation.
Was there already similar projects at SPIEGEL ONLINE?
SPIEGEL ONLINE has already implemented two projects in recent years with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: The "Expedition The Day After tomorrow" on Global Sustainability Goals and the journalistic refugee project "The New Arrivals" Several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and escape have emerged.
Where can I find all the publications on the Global Society?
The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL ONLINE on the topic page Global Society.
