EMPLOYED BY CHINA It’s often assumed that the Chinese in Africa ‘bring their own’ and don’t hire locals. In Ethiopia, that’s not the case -- but will it lift the country out of poverty? Words, video and images by Jenni Marsh, CNN

The assembly line at Huajian International Shoe City, Addis Ababa.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Zhang Huarong points out of his office window to a bleak block of grey portacabins at the Huajian International Shoe City, in Addis Ababa. “That is what I lived in for six months when I came to Africa,” he says. “I am 60 years old. Back in China, I am a wealthy man -- my house in Dongguan even has a swimming pool. But I chose to come here and do something very difficult.” In 2011, this self-made textile tycoon from Jiangxi province became one of the first Chinese entrepreneurs to heed the call of Ethiopia’s then-Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to open a factory in his country. Within three months, Huajian was producing footwear for giants such as Nine West, Guess and, later, Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, before it closed. “This is something God is telling me to do,” Zhang (pictured below) says, framing himself as a 21st-century manufacturing missionary whose goal is to create more than 100,000 jobs in the poorest parts of Africa. Rwanda is next. “In China, no one wants to make shoes anymore,” he adds. Ethiopia is undoubtedly one of the continent’s poorest countries, but that’s changing. In the decade leading up to 2016, Ethiopia’s economy swelled 10% a year making it the fastest growing in Africa. And with 100 million people, 70% of whom are under age 30, it also has the continent’s second-largest population. That’s both a massive demographic dividend and a real risk: with unemployment at 16.8%, jobs are urgently required. Businessmen like Zhang are seen as the country’s ticket out of poverty. Huajian employs 7,500 local workers at its two enormous factories in the Addis Ababa region. “As long as they have the right skills and training, Africans are just like Asians and Europeans,” he says. Huajian makes shoes exclusively for American clients. As one of the biggest Chinese employers in Ethiopia, Huajian has attracted intense scrutiny. Reports last year of poor working conditions at the firm’s Guangdong factory, in China, and rock bottom wages in Addis Ababa saw two customers, one of whom was Trump, jump ship. While many of the criticisms were valid, Huajian is operating in an environment of deep Western suspicion of the Chinese in Africa. In March, Rex Tillerson, then secretary of state, told leaders at the African Union, in Addis Ababa, that Chinese investors “do not bring significant job creation locally.” His comments echoed warnings about neo-colonialism in Africa and Chinese labor importation by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively. “China is a rising economy, and it’s going to be the global number one by 2030 latest,” says Arkebe Oqubay, a senior government official and architect of much of Ethiopia’s industrialization strategy. “There’s always rivalry when a great power diminishes. But we as the Africans are the ones to say if we are benefiting from China. We don’t need a witness.”

About 4,000 Ethiopian workers are employed at the Huajian International Shoe City, Addis Ababa.

‘Even my father doesn’t like being a farmer’ When Emaway Gashaw was 18 years old, she got on a bus and waved goodbye to her large family of coffee farmers. The journey from Jimma, in western Ethiopia, to Addis Ababa took 10 hours. She wound up in Jemo, a suburb of the capital that a decade ago was countryside but today is dotted by concrete condos housing rural migrants looking for work, including her elder cousin. “When I got here, I didn’t have any opportunities so I took this job,” she says. Emaway is a leather skiver at the Huajian International Light Industry City, a 1.5 million-square-meter industrial park that, will eventually provide housing, hospitals and schooling onsite, employ 100,000 workers, and within 10 years create $4 billion in revenue, according to the company. The Jemo area of Addis Ababa is becoming increasingly urban. From 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Emaway forms part of a sprawling assembly line inside a brightly lit, air-conditioned shed that looks like a giant aircraft hangar. But her wages allow for little. “I get paid 1,200 birr ($44) a month with overtime,” she says. “After rent and food, there is nothing left. My cousin has to support me.” Emaway is one of the lowest-paid workers at the factory. Getachew Tilanun, 20, is from a family of maize farmers in Welega, where Ethiopia borders South Sudan in the west. After working at the factory for two years, he has been promoted twice and now earns 2,500 birr (about $90) a month, and receives three meals a day and the chance to live onsite for subsidized rent. Unlike 90% of International Labour Organization member states, Ethiopia has no minimum wage. The international poverty line is about $57 a month. Emaway Gashaw, 18 years old, has worked at Huajian for nine months. “For my wage, I have a lot of responsibility,” he says, explaining that he oversees 100 workers, including 11 line supervisors. “If they make mistakes, my wages get docked.” Getachew has taught himself to speak Chinese to give himself “unique” employment skills. “I tried to find out everything I could about China on the internet,” he says. “When I saw Asian people, I just tried to speak to them.” His work is tough, but the alternative is worse. “Even my father doesn’t like being a farmer,” Getachew says. “It’s the job of the very uneducated.” Just 1% of the 4,000 workers at the Jemo factory are Chinese, says Bonn Liang, a manager who was headhunted from Dongguan one year ago. "But in the future, we will all go back to China,” he adds. That’s already happened at the Sino-Ethiop Associate pharmaceutical factory in Dukem, south of Addis. A joint venture between two Chinese and one Ethiopian firm, the facility has 177 employees, only one of whom is Chinese. “In our first year, some Ethiopian workers were sent to China for training, and about 50 Chinese experts came here,” says Andrew Shegaw, the factory manager. “Now we are 100% independent.” The factory employs Ethiopian pharmacists, engineers, and electricians, who received workplace training from the Chinese to supplement their academic knowledge. A worker at the Sino-Ethiop Associate pharmaceutical factory in Dukem. Contrary to popular belief, these scenarios are not unusual. A groundbreaking McKinsey report last year, which surveyed more than 1,000 Chinese companies in construction, manufacturing, trade, real estate, and services in eight African countries, including Ethiopia, found that on average 89% of employees were African. Several million African jobs had been created by China on the continent. Nearly two-thirds of Chinese companies provided skills training, while half offered apprenticeships, and a third had introduced a new technology. It was the first time a large-scale dataset on Chinese hiring practices in Africa had been made available, and it rebutted the criticisms voiced by Tillerson. “I believe that (his claim) was very short-sighted,” Arkebe says. “It’s hard to believe a secretary of state was misinformed.”