The wonderful relationship between China and black Africans is shocking!

4/16/2023 Africa News By Kengyi, Zhengwei and Baifeng

Chinese in Africa

Hu Jieguo (1948 - ?) was born in the Putuo District of Shanghai. Before 1978, he lived an ordinary life and was expected to continue living an ordinary life. However, in 1978, his life took an unexpected turn when his father asked him to inherit his position as a leader of Chinese expatriates in Nigeria. Initially, Hu Jieguo was resistant to the idea and did not want to go to Africa. In his mind, life in Africa was chaotic and lacked the safety and security he was used to in China. Moreover, he had a strained relationship with his father and did not want to follow in his footsteps.

At the time, the Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, Feng Yujui, happened to hear about Hu Jieguo's situation. Feng was an acquaintance of Hu's father and decided to offer some advice to Hu Jieguo. He said, "The Chinese expatriate community in Nigeria cannot be without a successor." This made Hu Jieguo realize the importance of the position and he expressed his willingness to go to Nigeria to Feng Yujui.

When Hu Jiegao first arrived in Nigeria, he, like other overseas Chinese, experienced some discomfort due to the differences in climate and environment. However, this was not the real challenge he had to face. The bigger challenge was that at that time, Nigeria was overly reliant on oil production, which led to the decline of agriculture and manufacturing. In other words, developing in these two directions was not feasible. Hu Jiegao realized this, but he also saw the feasibility of developing the service industry. Therefore, instead of taking over his father's textile factory, he worked as an employee at a five-star hotel called "Shangri-La" in Nigeria. After ten years of hard work, he went from an ordinary worker to the supreme boss.

At that time, the Nigerian government's excessive oil exploitation had seriously damaged the environment, which led to the dissatisfaction of environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa. With his constant accusations, the Nigerian government could not bear it anymore and sentenced the environmentalist to death. Other countries were unhappy with Nigeria's actions and imposed an economic blockade on the country. In this situation, all businessmen began to withdraw their investments, but Hu Jiegao did not. He invested all his money in Nigeria and built a hotel called the Golden Gate Hotel with $8 million. This was a hotel where Chinese food was held in higher regard than Western food, and it often hosted exhibitions of Chinese culture and trade fairs, vigorously spreading Chinese culture. After a period of observation, Hu Jiegao discovered that Chinese food was very popular in Nigeria. Using this as an opportunity, he opened a series of chain hotels in Nigeria, which rapidly increased his assets and laid the foundation for future endeavors.

Hu Jiegao's appearance also built a new bridge for Sino-African cooperation. Since 1998, he has been helping Chinese companies enter Africa. Hu Jiegao said that his goal is always to encourage more Chinese companies to invest in Nigeria or its neighboring countries. For example, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation's 3,000-kilometer railway renovation and maintenance project in Nigeria, with a contract amount of up to $560 million, was negotiated with the help of Hu Jiegao. Having lived in Nigeria for decades, Hu Jiegao gradually fell in love with this country and its black brothers, moved by their sincerity and friendliness. Due to the instability of the national government, Hu Jiegao has experienced four or five coups and has faced multiple choices: should he stay or go? At that time, many people from Western countries left, and many of their investments were withdrawn, but in the end, Hu Jiegao chose to stay. "The reasons that prompted me to stay at that time were, first, Nigeria is still a developing country; second, it may be related to the education we received from childhood, we have feelings for our black brothers; third, I have very good partners in the local area, who treat me like a son, and we have been working together for 30 years, very happily," Hu Jiegao said emotionally.