-Documenting the Multidisciplinary Field Study in Mauritius by
the Undergraduate School of Nanjing University
The Institute of History, Liu Litao
Introduction: Observing a “Small-Country Sample” in the Indian Ocean
Mauritius may look inconspicuous on the map. This island nation in the southwest Indian Ocean lies about 2,000 kilometers from the African mainland, and its territory is smaller than that of many counties in China. For a long time, Mauritius has been known primarily as a “tourist paradise”: islands, beaches, resort hotels and honeymoon trips are the images most readily associated with the country.
Yet once the field team began to engage with the island, it quickly became clear that Mauritius is far more complex than a holiday destination. It was once an important colonial port contested by France and Britain, as well as a key node in the Indian Ocean slave trade and indentured-labour system. People of African, Indian, Chinese and European descent have lived here side by side, with different religions, languages and cultures coexisting for generations. Although Mauritius lacks abundant mineral resources, it has built one of Africa’s more stable political systems and attained a relatively high level of human development. At the same time, it depends on global capital and international trade while trying to preserve room for manoeuvre amid competition among major powers.
In a sense, Mauritius resembles a “compressed” sample of globalization. Colonialism, migration, trade, finance, ecology, ethnic relations, international relations and geopolitics—issues scattered across different countries—are concentrated here, magnified and intertwined. This is why the field trip was more than an ordinary overseas research visit. For the students, it became an opportunity to examine how a small country navigates the challenges of survival.
In today’s highly volatile globalized environment, major powers generally have greater resources and strategic buffers, while small states must respond to external risks with greater sensitivity. How can they avoid excessive dependence on a single economic sector? How can they balance the interests of different communities? How can they develop economically while living with fragile ecosystems? And how can they retain agency as the international order changes? Mauritius offers practical answers to all of these questions.
During the field study, the team visited ports, sugar museums, financial districts, ecological reserves, universities, research institutions and local communities, and held extensive exchanges with diplomats, business leaders, scholars, ship captains, engineers and residents.
As the study progressed, one conclusion gradually emerged: Mauritius did not develop through a single “miraculous leap.” Rather, its trajectory resembles a long and careful process of balancing—between colonial history and national identity, between an open economy and social stability, between ecological conservation and tourism development, and between different major powers.
Such balance is not easy. Financial transformation, industrial upgrading, youth employment, climate change, social diversity and external competition continue to shape the island. Yet that is precisely what makes Mauritius worth studying. It may not offer a development model that can simply be copied, but it shows how a small country with limited resources and a complicated historycan continue to find its place within the global systemand achieve sound development. This is precisely what the Mauritius field study sought to understand.
First Stop: Grand Port and Port Louis—Understanding State Governance amid the Remains of Colonialism
Grand Port was overcast in the early morning, with a light drizzle falling as sea winds carried the damp salt air inland. The field team’s minibus followed the coast toward a low range of hills. A deep-blue sea stretched into the distance, while volcanic rock covered with tropical vegetation filled the foreground. It was hard to imagine that this tranquil island had once been an important object of European rivalry for control of the Indian Ocean.
Following a narrow path partly covered with weeds, the students came upon broken basalt walls weathered by years of wind and rain. From the surviving gun emplacement, the bay opened up below. This was where the Dutch first landed in Mauritius in 1598 and established a settlement, and it later became the island’s political, military and economic center under Dutch rule.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team in front of
the monument commemorating the first Dutch landing in Mauritius
The local guide pointed toward the sea and said that the earliest colonizers had entered the bay from that direction. After arriving, the Dutch introduced animals such as deer, pigs and cats, felled large quantities of valuable ebony and began cultivating sugar cane. To sustain the plantation economy, they also transported enslaved people from Madagascar and elsewhere to Mauritius. But the early colonizers lacked a long-term plan for governing the isolated island. Difficulties in clearing land and the spread of rats inadvertently introduced from outside contributed to repeated famines. As the ebony forests were exhausted, the colonial economy rapidly lost its foundation. In 1710, the last Dutch governor even set fire to the fort before leaving, and Mauritius again became largely deserted. The country’s present name, “Mauritius,” still derives from Dutch naming, and this failed colonial experience became part of its national historical memory.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Fort Frederik Hendrik
Most of the ruins visible today, however, were not left by the Dutch. After France occupied the island in 1715, it rebuilt the site, renamed Mauritius “Isle de France” and gradually moved the administrative center to Port Louis, whose harbor was more favorable for navigation.
On the road to Port Louis, sugar fields, Hindu temples and French-style colonial buildings passed outside the windows. The students repeatedly discussed a question: why did Mauritius, despite experiencing colonial rule like many other countries, eventually emerge as one of Africa’s more stable states?
Part of the answer may lie in the institutional foundations established during French rule. The French built a large-scale tropical plantation economy, relied heavily on enslaved Africans, and created a colonial social structure centered on French-speaking white plantation owners. Port Louis also developed into a major French supply port and trading center in the Indian Ocean. Roads were built across the island, more systematic fiscal, tax and monetary institutions were introduced, and the French Civil Code—the Napoleonic Code—was eventually brought to Mauritius.
The notorious Code Noir (Black Code)
Long French rule also reshaped the island’s cultural structure. Africans forcibly removed from their original cultural traditions gradually adopted Catholicism, while Mauritian Creole, based on French and incorporating elements of African languages, became a major lingua franca. Creole remains one of the most widely spoken languages in Mauritius today.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team in front of the monument commemorating the 1810 naval battle
In 1810, France and Britain fought intensely for control of the Indian Ocean. When the team reached the Grand Port naval battle memorial, rain was still falling. One student remarked that the battle was the only naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. France did defeat the British fleet at the Battle of Grand Port in 1810, but the British later landed with superior forces from the north and ultimately occupied the entire island. Mauritius then entered the British colonial period.
What truly shaped Mauritius’s future, however, was not the war itself but the compromise that followed the British victory. Under the Act of Capitulation, Britain allowed the French colonial elite to retain the Napoleonic Code, French and Catholicism in order to reassure French plantation owners who controlled the sugar economy. French law, language and cultural practices therefore survived the transfer of political power. The resulting combination of a British-style political structure and a French civil-law tradition gradually evolved into a distinctive Mauritian model of governance.
At noon, the team climbed to Fort Adelaide overlooking Port Louis. From above, harbor cranes, the colonial old town, modern financial offices and the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean could all be seen at once. Built by the British colonial government in 1834, the fort was ostensibly intended to defend against external threats, but its more immediate function was to contain possible unrest in Port Louis. Britain was preparing to abolish slavery in Mauritius, while French plantation owners strongly opposed the decision. The British government combined military deterrence with large financial compensation to planters and used indentured labour to sustain sugar production, thereby reducing the risk of large-scale violence.
Fort Adelaide overlooking Port Louis
From the 1830s, the British colonial government brought in large numbers of indentured workers to replace enslaved labour. Over the following decades, around 500,000 labourers came to Mauritius, the vast majority from India. This policy transformed the island’s demographic structure. People of Indian descent eventually became the largest population group and profoundly influenced the country’s political landscape.
In contrast to the more rigid “divide and rule” practices used by Britain in some African colonies, colonial governance in Mauritius was relatively pragmatic and gradual.Alongside the Westminster parliamentary system, the colonial authorities developed the well-known “Best Loser System,” which reserved a degree of political representation for smaller communities. Although clearly rooted in colonial-era compromise, the arrangement objectively reduced political anxiety among communities and helped lay the foundations for later multiethnic coexistence.
Standing on the fortress walls, the team discussed why so many African states fell into prolonged instability after independence while Mauritius maintained relative stability. The answer may be relatively simple. After independence, Mauritius did not completely dismantle the institutions inherited from colonial rule. Instead, it gradually adjusted them while retaining Anglo-French legal traditions. Rather than radically cutting itself off from its past, it integrated diverse legal traditions, community experiences and colonial legacies into resources for modern governance.
In this sense, perhaps the most valuable lesson of Mauritius is that it did not escape its history. It learned how to live with it.
Second Stop: Sugar Museums, Industrial Parks and Cybercity—From “One Sugar Cane” to a Digital Economy
As the team left the hotel and headed north, the scenery changed constantly. Large sugar-cane fields still covered the landscape, but clusters of modern office buildings increasingly appeared alongside them. Mauritius’s economic transformation seemed compressed into just a few dozen kilometers of road.
For a long time, “sugar” almost defined Mauritius, earning it the nickname of the “Sugar Island.” During the colonial period, the economy was highly concentrated. Sugar cane once covered most arable land, and sugar exports accounted for more than 90 percent of total exports for many years. The country resembled a giant plantation organized around a single crop. In 1961, British economist James Meade pessimistically predicted that a monocrop economy, population pressure and ethnic tensions would make stable post-independence development difficult.
Later developments proved him wrong.
The team’s first research site was L’Aventure du Sucre in Pamplemousses, a museum converted from the Beau Plan sugar factory, which was built in 1802. Inside the former factory, the cool smell of metal mixed with the faint scent of wood and lingering sweetness. Huge steam boilers, clarifiers and centrifuges remain in place. One student stood beside the old machinery and remarked on how difficult it was to imagine a small island staking its entire national future on a single crop.
The factory ruins not only record the colonial-era monocrop economy but also bear witness to Mauritius’s later transition. Faced with fluctuations in global sugar prices and the removal of preferential tariffs in the European Union, Mauritius did not simply abandon sugar. Instead, it pushed the traditional industry toward higher value-added products. The museum displays more than ten varieties of specialty sugars, differing in color and texture, as well as premium rum distilled from sugar cane.
At the same time, Mauritius began making greater use of sugar-cane biomass. Data displayed on site showed that bagasse, the residue left after sugar extraction, is now used in cogeneration to meet nearly 20 percent of the island’s electricity demand. The former sugar factory itself has also become a popular industrial heritage and tourism attraction. As one student put it, this is a typical small-island logic: when resources are limited, every part must be used to the greatest possible extent.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at L’Aventure du Sucre
Compared with the heavy industrial atmosphere of the old sugar factory, the museum felt quiet and refined. Its displays include Chinese copper coins, Indian silver coins and European gold coins that entered the island through early maritime trade, as well as colonial banknotes and the modern Mauritian rupee. A Bank of Mauritius researcher told the students that the country’s advantage was not simply low tax rates but institutional stability.
From the late 1980s, Mauritius promoted financial liberalization, removed foreign-exchange controls, maintained relatively low corporate taxes and signed double taxation avoidance agreements with numerous countries. On that basis, it gradually developed an offshore financial system oriented toward international markets. At the same time, the government continued to emphasize financial compliance. Facing international requirements on anti-money laundering and tax transparency, Mauritius has continually adjusted its regulatory system in order to preserve its financial reputation. As Professor Zhang Zhenke, the team leader, put it on the bus, “For a small country, credibility itself is a resource.”
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at the Bank of Mauritius
The Bank of Mauritius Museum featured the Nanjing University team’s study visit on its website
If finance provided the institutional foundation, Ebene Cybercity became the most visible spatial expression of economic transformation. What had once been ordinary sugar-cane fields began to change after the Mauritian government decided in 2001 to build a new technology park. Today, dozens of modern office buildings stand there, surrounded by palms and tropical vegetation. Young professionals move in and out, while cars dominate the streets.
At a café beside a large supermarket, a young employee of a financial-services company told the team that many of his clients were not in Mauritius at all, but across Africa. The comment captured the significance of Cybercity. With the advantages of English, French and Creole, a stable legal environment and dense submarine cable connections, Ebene has developed into an important shared-services center for multinational companies handling African operations. Huawei, EY and Absa Bank are among companies with regional operations there.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Ebene Cybercity
More importantly, Cybercity has changed the employment structure facing young Mauritians. In the past, many entered sugar, ports or low-end manufacturing. Today, finance, software engineering, cross-border legal services and data-related work are becoming new career paths.
Yet the transformation has costs. Rising labour costs have gradually weakened the competitiveness of traditional manufacturing. Maintaining the country’s edge in high-end services while avoiding economic hollowing-out has become a new challenge.
The Jinfei Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, in which Chinese companies have participated, offered the field team another perspective. Compared with the bustle of Cybercity, the park appeared relatively quiet. A business complex once developed with high expectations had few visitors, and some facilities were underused. A Chinese entrepreneur who had worked in Africa for years put it plainly: industrial parks in Africa cannot simply copy domestic Chinese models.
The Mauritian experience shows that economic transformation is not simply a matter of building several industrial parks. What matters more is the institutional environment, the structure of human capital, positioning in international markets and the capacity for long-term management.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Jinfei Industrial Park in Mauritius
On the road from Cybercity to Eureka, modern office towers and traditional plantations appeared side by side. Several centuries ago, the island depended almost entirely on sugar. Today it has gradually embedded itself in global networks of finance, digital services and regional trade. Mauritius may not have completely left “sugar” behind,butit has learned how to seek a future beyond a single crop.
Third Stop: Blue Bay, Ile aux Aigrettes and Black River Gorges—How Ecological Red Lines Protect the Foundations of Development
The team headed southeast under clear skies and intense tropical sunlight. The sea wind was noticeably stronger than in previous days, and the Indian Ocean gradually appeared at the end of the road.
Blue Bay Marine Park came into view, renowned as one of the world’s outstanding snorkeling destinations. Even before getting off the bus, students were struck by the water: almost transparent pale blue near the shore, deepening into a rich blue farther out. Through the surface, coral and slow-moving tropical fish were clearly visible.
The glass-bottom boat moved into the protected core area. Branching corals spread below like an underwater forest, while fish darted between them. The captain repeatedly reminded visitors: do not feed the fish, do not touch the coral, and do not allow boats to leave the designated route. The rules appeared strict, but they form the heart of Blue Bay’s conservation system.
Blue Bay Marine Park was established in 1997 and is one of Mauritius’s major marine protected areas. Nearby communities had long relied on fishing and coral collection. As tourism expanded, marine ecosystems deteriorated rapidly. The government later introduced a protected-area system and licensing mechanisms that helped transform former fishermen into glass-bottom boat captains, snorkeling guides and marine patrol personnel.
One captain who had once worked as a fisherman told the team that people used to think of coral as nothing more than stones in the sea. Now they understand that coral can be worth more than fish. The team noticed that Blue Bay’s distinctive feature is not simply a ban on development, but a mechanism linking ecological health with community interests. Local captains’ incomes depend directly on water clarity, coral health and fish populations. When visitors try to touch coral, local boat operators are often the first to intervene. As one student put it, “The ecosystem at sea is their bank account.”
Blue Bay also promotes community-based coral restoration. International organizations and local communities have worked together to engage unemployed young people and fishermen in restoration. Workers showed the team underwater “spider-web” coral structures on which young corals are fixed until they can grow. Professor Zhang Zhenke, the team leader and an expert on geography and marine issues, also noted that Huawei has participated in coral-reef restoration work in Mauritius.
The protected area is divided into functional zones: core areas are closed to visitors; low-speed tourism zones permit one-way glass-bottom boat traffic; coastal sections remain available for swimming and recreation. Such fine-grained zoning allows conservation, tourism and community life to coexist in the same marine space.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Blue Bay Marine Park
Compared with the busy Blue Bay, Ile aux Aigrettes is exceptionally quiet. Commercial facilities are almost absent. Staff from the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation emphasized the rules again before entry: remain with the group, do not touch plants and keep noise to a minimum. The island is more like an open ecological laboratory.
Ile aux Aigrettes has been managed by the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation for many years and is one of Mauritius’s most important ecological restoration projects. It remains largely in a natural state, with visitor numbers strictly controlled. Along the forest paths, traces of restoration are everywhere: invasive plants have been removed, bird observation points established and isolation areas created for rare species.
Many endemic species once faced extinction. The Mauritius kestrel is the most famous example. In the 1970s, only four birds remained in the world. After long-term captive breeding and habitat restoration, the population has recovered to several hundred. The pink pigeon followed a similar trajectory. After waiting quietly in the forest for more than ten minutes, the students were guided by conservation professionals to a mature pink pigeon coming to drink. Nearly everyone instinctively raised a camera or phone.
Without long-term protected conservation, researchers told the team, these species might have disappeared completely. Ile aux Aigrettes does not pursue large-scale tourism revenue. Its restricted access, limited scale and strong conservation measureshave instead made it an important site for international ecological research and documentary production.
In Mauritius, ecological value has itself become a new economic resource. Black River Gorges National Park offered a different model. As the vehicle climbed, sugar-cane fields gave way to dense rainforest and the air became more humid. Clouds moved through the valleys, and rain and sunlight crossed the mountains in dramatic succession.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Île aux Aigrettes Nature Reserve
Black River Gorges is Mauritius’s largest national park and its most important ecological shield. Large areas of native forest cover the mountains. The park preserves endemic plants and birds and serves as a major watershed. The rainforest stabilizes weathered basalt soils, reduces the risk of landslides during heavy rain and supplies freshwater to reservoirs across the island. Without these forests, the team leader explained, much of the island’s infrastructure would struggle to withstand tropical downpours.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Black River Gorges National Park
What most impressed the team was the linkage between ecological protection and local livelihoods. Where some developing countries see forest conservation and economic growth as opposing goals, communities around Black River Gorges are increasingly deriving income from ecotourism. Some residents work as hiking guides, some run guesthouses, and others participate in patrols and invasive-species removal. As a local guide smiled and said, “The better the forest becomes, the higher our income.”
That simple sentence may capture the core logic of Mauritius’s ecological governance. For a small island with extremely limited land and natural resources, ecology is not an accessory to development. It is part of survival itself.
Fourth Stop: The Intercontinental Slavery Museum, the Aapravasi Ghat and Chinatown—How a Multiethnic Society Coexists
The fourth theme addressed one of the most complex and sensitive questions in Mauritius: how a multiethnic society was formed and how it has maintained long-term stability. The team entered museums and communities in search of an answer.
The first visit was to the Intercontinental Slavery Museum, opened only three years ago in a former eighteenth-century military hospital. The building itself was constructed by enslaved Africans. Inside, the atmosphere immediately became quiet. The enlarged facial casts of African enslaved people that line one exhibition space are based on nineteenth-century casts collected by French anthropologists. Several students lingered there. A history student whispered that standing in the room made history suddenly feel less abstract.
From the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, Mauritius was an important transit point in the Indian Ocean slave trade. Enslaved people were brought not only from the African mainland but also from Madagascar, the Comoros and parts of India and Southeast Asia. Exhibits include chains and shackles, a reproduction of the Code Noir, and artifacts excavated from slave burial sites.
The Code Noir is particularly disturbing. Issued by King Louis XIV of France in 1685 to regulate slavery in French overseas colonies, the code legally defined Black people as property and prescribed punishments for enslaved people who resisted or escaped. The field team described this history as a form of institutionalized violence. Yet the museum does more than present suffering. In an audio exhibition, the students heard early sega music, a traditional rhythmic form passed down orally by enslaved Africans. A Creole guide explained that it was a cultural practice preserved under extreme oppression.
In recent years, the Mauritian government has placed greater emphasis on researching colonial history and created a Truth and Justice Commission to examine the social wounds left by slavery and indentured labour. The message at the museum entrance is simple: only by confronting history can societies avoid repeating it.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at the Intercontinental Slavery Museum, alongside photographs of African faces displayed at the museum
Next door stands Aapravasi Ghat. The space is more open and less heavy. After Britain abolished slavery in 1835, hundreds of thousands of Indian indentured labourers arrived in Mauritius through this site. Between 1849 and 1923, more than 460,000 indentured workers entered the island, the vast majority from India. Formally described as “free labourers,” many were deceived or subjected to coercive plantation work. One researcher told the team that many historians regard indentured labour as another form of slavery.
The team noticed that the Mauritian government increasingly places slavery and indentured labour within a shared historical narrative. In the past, Afro-Creole and Indo-Mauritian communities sometimes engaged in a competition over whose historical suffering was greater. Today, official narratives emphasize a common point: both enslaved people and indentured labourers were victims of the colonial system. This emphasis on shared suffering has become one means of fostering reconciliation among communities.
Eureka, a plantation estate long associated with the Franco-Mauritian elite, likewise presents the luxury of plantation owners alongside the suffering of enslaved people. The estate was built through enslaved labour, and the literary works of the Le Clézio family have reflected on the class and racial divide embedded in its history.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at Aapravasi Ghat
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at the Aapravasi Ghat World Heritage Site Museum
Chinatown offered a very different atmosphere. Chinese characters appeared alongside English and French signs, and the air carried the mixed smells of soy sauce, roast meats and the sea. Historically, Chinese merchants’ informal credit practices became an important social bond. At a time when many low-income labourers had unstable earnings, Chinese shops provided goods on credit and gradually built a cross-community network of commercial trust. Such networks supported livelihoods and, to some extent, eased tensions created by competition over scarce resources.
People of Chinese descent account for less than three percent of Mauritius’s population, and their share of the population has continued to decline, yet Chinese culture remains highly visible. Chinese New Year is a public holiday. A 25-rupee note bears the portrait of the Chinese-Mauritian politician Sir Jean Étienne Moilin Ah-Chuen, and the Guandi Temple, built in 1842, remains a striking feature of Port Louis. Worshippers are not exclusively Chinese. In Mauritius, Guandi has increasingly become a shared cross-community symbol representing integrity, justice and community peace.
Chinatown in Mauritius
Such cultural integration was not achieved through forced assimilation. It rests, rather, on the acceptance of difference. Mauritius’s political institutions likewise seek to maintain a balance. The Best Loser System reserves a degree of political representation for smaller communities, helping to prevent winner-take-all politics. The system is not perfect and remains controversial, but it has objectively reduced anxiety among smaller communities.
The Nanjing University Multidisciplinary Expedition Team in front of the Guan Di Temple in Port Louis, Mauritius
Why, then, do some multiethnic countries experience prolonged conflict while Mauritius has remained relatively stable? The answer may not be that Mauritius has no contradictions. On the contrary, its distinctive quality is its willingness to acknowledge contradictions, preserve differences and continue searching for ways for different communities to live together. That capacity is itself a form of political wisdom.
Fifth Stop: Ports, Fortresses and Strategic Wisdom—How a Small State Finds Space among Major Powers
During the days in Port Louis, the team passed the harbor almost every day. Giant container cranes moved slowly, freighters lined the docks and ships from different countries entered and left the port. Outside, container trucks marked with French, English and Chinese characters moved along the roads.
For Mauritius, whose land area is only around 2,000 square kilometers, the ocean has never been merely a boundary. It is part of survival itself. Geographically, Mauritius sits near important shipping routes in the southwest Indian Ocean. The Dutch, French and British all regarded the island as a strategic foothold for influence over the region. Today, as major-power competition intensifies again, the island has once more been drawn into a wider geopolitical map.
Port Louis, a key hub in the Indian Ocean
Looking down on Port Louis from Fort Adelaide, students compared maps of the Indian Ocean and its shipping lanes. A Mauritian scholar specializing in strategic studies told the team that whoever controls this position can influence shipping in the southwest Indian Ocean. The logic behind the Battle of Grand Port in 1810 has not disappeared; only the forms of competition have changed.
Mauritius has no standing army, only police and a coast guard. Precisely because of that, it relies more heavily on diplomacy, law and multilateral mechanisms to protect its interests. During the Cold War, Mauritius maintained a policy of non-alignment. In the twenty-first century, this small-state balancing strategy has become even more visible.
Mauritius’s geographical location in the Indian Ocean
In security affairs, Mauritius maintains close cooperation with India. The two countries have longstanding ties, reinforced by Mauritius’s large Indian-origin population. India has helped build ports, radar systems and maritime infrastructure and has assisted with airport and harbor projects on Agalega. Yet Mauritius has also remained alert to questions of sovereignty. The Agalega projects generated domestic debate over the possible expansion of Indian strategic influence, while the Mauritian government has emphasized that cooperation must rest on respect for sovereign integrity.
Relations with Britain and the United States have centered more heavily on the Chagos Archipelago. In 1965, before Mauritian independence, Britain separated the Chagos Islands from the colony and allowed the United States to establish a military base on Diego Garcia. For decades, Mauritius continued to assert sovereignty over the archipelago. More recently, it has become increasingly adept at using international law and multilateral diplomacy. It transformed the Chagos issue from a purely bilateral dispute into an international question of unfinished decolonization, bringing the issue before the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice. In 2019, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion finding that Britain’s continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago was inconsistent with international law.
The field team also noted that Mauritius rarely adopts an openly confrontational diplomatic posture. Even over Chagos, it has consistently emphasized international law and negotiation rather than confrontation.
The same caution can be seen in its relations with China. Mauritius was the first African country to sign a free trade agreement with China, and Chinese enterprises have long participated in infrastructure, digital communications and industrial-park projects in the country. At the same time, Mauritius has remained among the relatively few African states that have not formally joined the Belt and Road Initiative.
Mauritius’s Chagos Archipelago (marked by the red dot)
This “cooperation while maintaining distance” strategy may look cautious, but it reflects a small state’s survival logic in a complex international environment. Mauritius knows its position. It does not seek to dominate major-power competition, but neither does it wish to become wholly dependent on any one side. It cannot reshape the international order, yet it is skilled at using international rules, regional organizations and multilateral mechanisms to maximize its room for manoeuvre.
In this sense, Mauritian diplomacy resembles a form of “fine-grained survival.” For a country with limited land, population and resources, balance itself is a capability.
Sixth Stop: The Embassy, Chinese Enterprises, the Confucius Institute and the Mauritius Institute of Health—A New Landscape of China-Mauritius Cooperation
Chinese communities have a long history in Mauritius. The Chinatown of Port Louis is the only fully preserved Chinese cultural presence of its kind in Africa, and China’s first overseas cultural center was also established here. The final theme of the field study was therefore the present state and future direction of China-Mauritius relations and practical cooperation.
The team first visited the Chinese Embassy in Mauritius. As Ambassador Huang was on leave in China, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Ding Pei and other diplomats warmly received the delegation. The discussion began with a book. The team mentioned that Li Li, a former Chinese ambassador to Mauritius, had organized a translation of the French writer Pascal Khoo Thwe’s work on Chinatown and Mauritius. The book uses the history of Chinese migration to document the formation of Mauritian multiethnic society.
One diplomat observed that understanding Mauritius requires more than looking at economics and diplomacy; it also requires understanding its complex cultural structure. The diplomats then introduced the development of China-Mauritius relations. Politically, the two countries have maintained stable relations. Economically, the China-Mauritius Free Trade Agreement became China’s first free trade agreement with an African country. In people-to-people affairs, the Chinese community and educational exchanges provide a natural bridge.
Diplomats from the Chinese Embassy in Mauritius pose for a group photo with the Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team
The discussion also addressed practical difficulties. A diplomat candidly noted that Chinese companies in Mauritius do not always have an easy path. Some projects face the constraints of a small market, relatively high operating costs and insufficient localization. Mauritius is not a place where Chinese domestic experience can simply be copied, he said, expressing hope that Nanjing University’s research strengths could help Chinese companies better understand and address local challenges.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team meets with the Mauritius company of China Jiangsu International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group
The team next visited China Jiangsu International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group’s Mauritius operations. The company has been active locally for more than four decades. When it first entered Mauritius, infrastructure was poor and conditions were difficult. Today it has stable local operations and has begun using Mauritius as a base from which to deploy employees to other African countries. A Chinese engineer who has worked in Mauritius for many years emphasized that the greatest challenge is not simply construction but long-term adaptation. Tropical conditions require building standards to account for strong winds, high humidity and heavy rain, while local society places great importance on environmental protection. Completing a project, he noted, is only the first step; long-term maintenance is the real test.
The Jinfei Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone again presented a more complicated picture. Listed in 2006 among the first overseas economic and trade cooperation zones established under China-Africa cooperation, the project once carried high expectations on both sides. Large planned roads and commercial facilities remain visible, but parts of the zone are quiet. A commercial project once developed with substantial investment has attracted few tenants.
Compared with quieter sections of Jinfei, nearby areas operated by Mauritian businesses were noticeably more active. The contrast led the students to reconsider an important question: in China-Africa cooperation, is it more important to build a project, or to make sure that it continues operating over the long term?
At the Confucius Institute at the University of Mauritius, the team was warmly received by Chinese director Professor Yang Fang and Mauritian director Professor Narendra Keishany. The Institute is no longer merely a language-teaching platform. It is increasingly a bridge for youth exchanges between China and Mauritius. Many Mauritian students study in China each year,especially in the field of medicine.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Expedition Team at the Confucius Institute at the University of Mauritius
Introduced by Professor Keishany, the team then held a focused academic exchange with Professor Marie-Francoise Brigitte Driver of the University of Mauritius’s Africa Institute. The two sides exchanged views on South-South cooperation, African regional development and China-Africa relations and reached an initial understanding on future research cooperation.
Professor Zhang Zhenke, leader of the expedition team, exchanges gifts with Professor Francoise Brigitte Driver of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Mauritius
Professor Marie-Francoise Brigitte Driver of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Mauritius delivers an academic presentation
The Mauritius Institute of Health was another important research stop. Its Executive Director, Dr. Jennita Ramburn, explained that health research in Mauritius covers disease prevention and control as well as medical education, nutrition, public health, environmental health and tropical disease surveillance. For an island state, she emphasized, public health is itself a component of national security.
The two sides also discussed future cooperation in public-health governance, tropical disease research and health-data collaboration. Despite the limited time, the discussion was difficult to conclude. On the way back, the students continued to ask why Mauritius has become an important node for Chinese business, educational exchanges and health cooperation in Africa.
The Nanjing University Mauritius Africa Expedition Team at the Mauritius National Health Research Institute
The answer may lie in the island’s distinctive position. It connects Africa with the wider Indian Ocean world, combines a relatively stable institutional environment with multilingual and multicultural advantages, and provides China not merely with an island market but with a window through which to observe, enter and understand Africa. For Mauritius, cooperation with China means more than capital and projects. It can also provide a broader range of development choices as global change accelerates.
Conclusion: A “Small-Country Answer” in the Evening Breeze of the Indian Ocean
On the final day, the field team returned once more to the waterfront in Port Louis. In only one week, the students had traversed many of the island’s most important places: from the weathered colonial ruins of Grand Port to corals slowly growing beneath the waters of Blue Bay; from the heavy steam machinery of an old sugar factory to the glowing screens of Ebene Cybercity; from the incense and street sounds of Chinatown to the sovereignty dispute over the Chagos Archipelago before international courts.
At first, many people viewed Mauritius simply as a “successful African development case.” Yet after walking through the country, they came to see it instead as a compressed and magnified sample of modern state governance. Its territory is small, but it concentrates many of the central questions of globalization: how colonial history is remembered, how a multiethnic society maintains balance, how ecological protection can coexist with economic development, and how a small state can create room for manoeuvre amid major-power competition.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Mauritius is that it does not rely on any single “miracle.” It lacks abundant resources, a huge domestic market and overwhelming geopolitical advantages. Its achievements are instead rooted in long-term governance capacity: commitment to institutional stability, respect for law and rules, restraint in managing ecological boundaries, and patience in handling the complexity of a diverse society.
This capacity is rarely dramatic. It appears in strict navigation rules inside coral-protection zones,in the recognition of holidays from different religious traditions as public holidays, and in the choice to use international law rather than emotional confrontation to defend national interests in international disputes.
The field team gradually realized that Mauritius is not a ready-made template for “success.” Many of its conditions cannot be replicated, and serious challenges remain, including pressure on youth employment, risks associated with economic concentration, climate change and geopolitical competition. Yet it offers an approach worth watching closely: for a small country with limited resources, what matters may be less about pursuing scale than building a stable, credible and sustainable system of governance; less about blindly chasing speed than maintaining the capacity to balance amid global change,how can a country with limited resources, a complex history and a position amid major-power competition continue moving forward with stability over the long term?
Afterword
This joint field study was generously supported by the education reform funding of the Undergraduate School of Nanjing University and the project funding of Professor Zhang Zhenke of the Institute of African Studies. During preparation and implementation, the team also received extensive assistance and support from the Undergraduate School, the Office of International Affairs, the School of History, and the School of Geography and Ocean Sciences.
The journey was not without difficulties. The original destination was Zambia, known as the “heart of Africa.” After the content, itinerary and interview arrangements had already been finalized, a severe Ebola outbreak suddenly emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in mid-May, and neighboring Zambia was also listed among the ten countries at highest risk of infection. Based on professional risk assessment and the principle of putting safety first, the team promptly applied to the university to terminate the Zambia itinerary and turned its attention to the African island of Mauritius in the southwestern Indian Ocean. The university responded with understanding and continued to provide strong support.
With assistance from multiple university units, the field team started over: recruiting participants, rebuilding its network of contacts and redesigning the multidisciplinary research program. Although instability in the international environment created obstacles for air travel, the team ultimately overcame the difficulties and completed the multidisciplinary joint field study in Mauritius.The team extends its most sincere and heartfelt thanks to all institutions and individuals who provided support.
The team also wishes to express deep appreciation to the students from the participating schools and departments. With the energy of youth and a strong thirst for knowledge, you carried your curiosity across this sun-baked land. You were undeterred by changing weather on mountain roads and unafraid of the weight of history encountered at old sites. You measured the breadth of the world with an open and determined spirit.
May you travel through many mountains and return with the same sincerity and youthful spirit with which you set out; may you cross rivers and stars and find a bright road ahead.
