The Chinese citizens detained last week in a crackdown on illegal gold mining in Ghana have been released. Ghana's Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur said on Wednesday that the crackdown was not targeting China. A Chinese joint working team consisting of diplomatic and law enforcement officials has been sent to Ghana to help Chinese nationals return home and more than 300 of them are already back in China.

As soon as the incident happened, the Chinese embassy responded rapidly by contacting the Ghanaian government and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested that it properly handle the matter and guard the safety and interests of Chinese residents. However, branding the gold miners "illegal" embarrassed the Chinese diplomatic authorities.

Ghana, the second largest gold producing country in Africa after only South Africa, has attracted many Chinese miners.  About 80 to 90 percent of them come from Shanglin, an impoverished state-level county in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

However, lured by the dream of getting rich overnight, many of the Chinese miners have taken illegal measures. Quite a number of them entered the country with tourist visas and stayed there without a legal identity. Moreover, according to local regulations, plots smaller than 25 acres are restricted to local residents, but this did not prevent the Chinese people from mining as they can be actual miners through "renting" plots from Ghanaian landowners. Coupled with Chinese nationals' lack of communication with the locals, many Chinese people with legitimate employment visas have also become involved.

China's rise has had a spillover effect by bringing Chinese laborers abroad, but internationalization of the labor force is where China lacks experience. In 2009, 182 Chinese workers without employment permits were found in a cement company in Vietnam and then repatriated to China. In 2011, 62 migrant workers who came to Mongolia with the help of illegal organizations had labor disputes with locals and their passports were withheld.

It seems that the growing capability brought by China's rise has not benefited every resident and many people living in poverty still take risks to seek easy fortunes abroad without proper legal permits. This is the deep-rooted cause of most overseas labor disputes.

Even the strongest consular protection is not a panacea. To allow overseas individuals to successfully match China's rapid rise, Chinese people in foreign countries themselves should strengthen their legal awareness and have more exchanges with locals.