The anger of the public about a sharp increase in fuel prices in Angola sparked three days of violence, some of which were addressed to the major Chinese community in the country. Violence has destroyed stores, closed factories and scares away the thousands of Chinese residents.
Based on reports, riots were born from demonstrations against the decision of Angolan governments to reduce grants on petrol. The riots preceded the action of governments in August to close 25 illegal Chinese Chinese cryptocurrency operations and expel 60 Chinese nationals involved.
Cryptocurrency extraction is prohibited in Angola due to the burden it places on the country’s electricity network. In the mining, people use special computer equipment to solve complex mathematical puzzles that validate and record transactions on a blockchain in exchange for cryptocurrency awards. Chinese nationals arrested in the repression had 24 hours to leave the country.
A recent video shared by the BBC Zimbabwe and other information channels show dozens of Chinese nationals flooding at Luandas International Airport, many that push wheel bags. In the video, a man can be heard of Chinese outside the airport in Portuguese and to say them in English goodbye.
Angola is home to around 300,000 Chinese citizens, one of the largest Chinese communities on the continent. Chinese citizens have factories and mines in the country. They also play an important role in the Angolas construction industry and its retail markets. Nearly 100 stores belonging to Chinese in Luanda were vandalized when violence broke out at the end of July.
The sudden explosion of violence against Angolan Chinese residents reflects an increasing resentment towards the Chinese, which many Angolans consider to be exploiters and the country as a whole, according to analysts.
In 2024, the Angolan authorities closed two Chinese factories to break local laws. A metal treatment installation worked without a license and polluted a local river. A plastic factory was accused of keeping its 113 Angolan employees locked up and living in unhealthy conditions. Angolan artisanal fishermen also complain that Chinese trawlers devastate the stocks of fish on which they count for their livelihoods.
The economic growth of the Chinese of Angolas over the past two decades has led to corruption and strong socio-economic disparities across the country, the upper 20% of the company benefiting from the agreements with China and the lowest 20% by seeing little of these generosity.
Angola was the largest beneficiary of Africa in the Belt and Road Chinas initiative, which provided the country for 68.6 billion dollars in loans for crucial infrastructure between 2000 and 2021, according to Aiddata, a project following the Chinese belt and road investments around the world.
Among other things, Chinese loans have built the new Dr Antonio Agostinho Neto International Airport which opened in 2024. The new installation can serve 15 million passengers and 600,000 tonnes of freight per year. It is the largest Chinese financed airport outside of China, according to Aiddata.
Angola agreed to repay his debt to China with oil exports. In recent years, however, because China has discouraged its oil imports from Africa and to Russia and the Middle East, Angola has had trouble reimbursing the billions of dollars it still owes.
Adding to Angolan resentments against China was the fact that, as in other African countries, a large part of the work on the Angolan belt and road projects was carried out by Chinese companies and Chinese workers. Hired Angolens generally worked as manual workers.
In some cases, finished Chinese projects have undergone setbacks. In 2010, for example, the Luanda General Hospital of 8 billion dollars of $ 8 billion was forced to close shortly after opening when cracks in the building raised the possibility that it can collapse. He reopened two years later after many repairs.
Chinese investments have not met expectations to improve Angolas technological capacity and technological infrastructure, analyst Somie Yoshikawa wrote earlier this year for the Eurasian journal. In addition, many roads, houses and buildings built by Chinese companies were of remarkably low quality quality.
