ABSTRACT

New Chinese migrants, the growth of Chinese enterprise, and Chinese geopolitics are becoming increasingly visible – and controversial – in the Three Guianas. Notions of a ‘Chinese Influx’ hark back to nineteenth-century views of the Far East as a threat, or as a Yellow Peril (Keevak 2011). Today, a renewed ‘Chinafobia’ is associated with the growing power of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Frayling 2014). But there are marked differences between the three territories: in Suriname, for example, the entrepreneurialism of Chinese migrants tends to be emphasised; in Guyana it is the PRC itself and its companies that are most prominent; and in French Guiana, there is little Chinese investment or migration, so Chinese influence plays only a small role in local discourse.