Negotiating Chinese nativeness and Muslim belonging: Hui internal migrants in China’s Asia–Africa market frontier

This article examines how Hui (Sino-Muslim) internal migrants in Yiwu, China, negotiate nativeness, religious belonging, and trust through encounters with Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews conducted between 2019 and 2021, it shows that Hui migrants assert Chinese nativeness while articulating Muslim relatedness through idioms of kinship, shared origin, and belonging that do not foreground foreign descent. Sustained commercial interaction also complicates idealized Muslim solidarity, leading Hui migrants—and, in some cases, Middle East and North Africa traders—to reassess whether shared religious identity ensures trustworthiness in everyday market exchange.