Sacralising Chinese Entrepreneurship: Christianity and Chinese Entrepreneurial Migration in the Making of a Patriarchal Diaspora

Abstract

This article explores China's global economic presence by focusing on the changing dynamics of diasporic Chinese entrepreneurship in France. Since the turn of the new century, the ethnic Chinese population in France has become increasingly heterogeneous in migratory trajectory and socioeconomic profile. Accordingly, the focus on economic activities among tight-knit groups in the traditional model of an ethnic enclave economy might not be adequate to capture new developments in Chinese entrepreneurship that also involve transnational religious practises. Drawing on a multi-year ethnographic study of the Chinese Christian community in Paris—a major business centre of Chinese wholesale products in Europe, this article explores the Chinese congregational life in one of the most secularised areas of Europe in order to provide an alternative explanation for the relationship of religion and Chinese entrepreneurship. It shows that the main stakeholders spearheading diasporic church growth are those first-generation male Chinese family entrepreneurs who place paramount emphasis on maintaining ethnic cultural roots and a traditional patriarchal social order. The image of Chinese Christian entrepreneurs with both intense economic aspirations and religious zeal navigating daily life in diaspora provides a timely counterpoint to the popular view of global Chinese migrants as purely economic agents.