Colony of Requited Dreams

In 1414, Admiral Zheng He, Grand Eunuch of the Three Treasures, set out from the Chinese port of Canton on an extraordinary journey. His naval retinue dwarfed anything the European powers of the time could possibly muster—62 galleons, more than 100 auxiliary vessels, 868 officers, 26,800 soldiers and sundry courtiers, eunuchs and servants. This great naval procession, part ceremony and part an act of genuine cultural curiosity, was called the Star Raft. “About the middle of October 1415,” wrote the pre-eminent China/Africa historian Philip Snow, “as Henry V’s army trudged through the mud of northern France towards Agincourt, a giraffe from Africa arrived in Peking.” Five hundred years later, the giraffe was hailed as a symbol of the revival of the relationship between Africa and China by a Beijing newspaper.

The symbol is a tough one to parse. Indeed, along the east coast of Africa...