IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gig/afjour/v43y2008i3p353-370.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The China Shop Phenomenon: Trade Supply within the Chinese Diaspora in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Laribee

Abstract

The recent wave, dating from the mid 1990s, of newcomers within the Chinese Diaspora in South Africa has managed to establish and dominate a line of trade supply all the way from the ports of China to the homes of millions of South Africans. This paper examines the economic environment within which small ‘China shops’ are active, exploring competition within the group of Chinese traders in particular and how the latest wave of Chinese immigrants has affected supply chains and demand within South Africa. A case study in one small South African town demonstrates how the Chinese community utilizes its competitive advantages to maximize the value of its trade. This paper also strives to shatter the notion of a ‘China Inc’, arguing that although Chinese traders in consumer goods may have altered consumer demands within South Africa, above all they compete in an individualistic scramble to gain competitive advantage over other ‘China shops’.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Laribee, 2008. "The China Shop Phenomenon: Trade Supply within the Chinese Diaspora in South Africa," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 43(3), pages 353-370.
    • Handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:43:y:2008:i:3:p:353-370
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Katy N. Lam, 2015. "Chinese Adaptations: African Agency, Fragmented Community and Social Capital Creation in Ghana," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 44(1), pages 9-41.
    2. Guive Khan Mohammad, 2014. "The Chinese Presence in Burkina Faso: A Sino-African Cooperation from Below," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 43(1), pages 71-101.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gig:afjour:v:43:y:2008:i:3:p:353-370. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andreas Mehler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dueiide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.