The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently travelled to Africa on his first overseas assignment of the year. His agenda covered civil society interchange and economic collaboration in addition to the Middle East problem. Beijing, which is insatiably hungry for raw minerals and energy, is beginning to place more and more emphasis on Africa.
The world’s second-largest economy has close ties of cooperation with African nations following World War II. Beijing made friends and positioned itself as a representative of these developing nations, which would eventually join the so-called “Global South.”
Africa has consistently been a dependable source of natural resources since China started its policy reform and opened its economy 45 years ago. Beijing has invested in social services like healthcare and education as well as infrastructure in exchange.
For instance, China funded the 1,860-kilometre (1,100-mile) train line in the 1970s that connected Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia with the port city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The Uhuru Railway, also known as the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), passes through the most significant copper mining region in Africa.
Thus, China imports copper from Zambia through a self-constructed rail network. This trend was observed in a large number of other infrastructure projects.
President Xi Jinping claimed that Sino-African relations were the model for the whole community at the time in a video message, stating that “both sides have built an indestructible fraternal bond in the struggle against imperialism and colonialism.”
Marina Rudyak, a Sinologist at the Institute for East Asian Studies at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, noted that the foundation of the partnership between China and Africa today is reciprocity.
“China provides commerce, investment, and development assistance to African nations. And in exchange, China gets political support in relationships between financial flows and African states’ UN voting patterns on matters important to China,” the speaker stated.
A report by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Germany claims that China has built or renovated more than 15 African legislative buildings. By maintaining these parliament buildings over time, China will reach out to cross-party legislative elites.
China, on the other hand, disputes this allegation and charges the West with placing political requirements on development assistance, such as the advancement of democracy, human rights, and good governance.
The African nations themselves do not, however, perceive any rivalry between China and the West.
Rudyak suggests that while the West provides various resources, China builds infrastructure, and Africa takes what it needs, creating a win-win scenario without selfishness involved.
According to Philipp Gieg, a specialist in international relations at the University of Würzburg in Germany, China has distinct normative concepts.
He asserted that Beijing’s objectives drive Chinese aid, not China’s dictates on what Africa should accomplish. That’s what it says right out loud. Gieg told DW that when China talks about “win-win,” it means both a victory for Africa and a win for China.
During his visit to Africa shortly after the China-critical candidate William Lai Ching-te emerged victorious in Taiwan’s presidential election, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang discovered political unity.
According to Beijing, Taiwan is part of China and will eventually be “reunited” with the mainland.
Prime Minister Victoire Tomegah Dogbe declared, “Togo favours the reunification of China. In the globe, there is only one China.”
The president of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, stated that Taiwan is an essential component of China.
Isolating Taiwan on the global scene is a part of Beijing’s plan for the autonomous island. For instance, Taiwan only has formal diplomatic ties with 11 nations.
Establishing dependency
As a key element of Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which forms a foundation of Chinese foreign policy and provides loans for major infrastructure projects in developing countries, China is expanding its economic partnership with Africa.
The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a summit held every three years with leaders from China and Africa, was last hosted in Senegal in 2021. In an effort to strengthen ties amid rising global political and economic instability, China recently invited over 50 African leaders to Beijing for a conference.
Ahead of the summit, a number of the continent’s leaders, including Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and William Ruto of Kenya, had one-on-one meetings with their Chinese counterparts and were given tours of Beijing and other key places in China’s development.
“China wants African politicians to understand that we are in the same boat, we are all victims of Western imperialism,” Prof. Munene noted.
Paul Frimpong, executive director of the Africa-China Centre for Policy and Advisory in Ghana, states that Western nations and oil-rich Gulf states are working to balance China’s influence in Africa.
“There is a tremendous interest and rivalry in and around what Africa’s potential is. It escapes the gloom of the US and EU’s continuous aid focus with its concomitant conditionality and preaching,” he added.
China has been successful in its diplomacy during the past 20 years. It has become Africa’s biggest trading partner out of all the nations in the world.
The Xi Jinping led-government purchases a fifth of Africa’s exports, which primarily consist of metals, mineral products, and petroleum, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since 2001, exports have increased fourfold in US dollars.
The IMF stated that China is also the single largest supplier of imports of machinery and manufactured goods for African nations.
However, the trade balance generally favours China significantly. In his one-on-one encounter with President Xi, Mr. Ramaphosa attempted to address this.
Following the event, a joint statement stated that “China demonstrated its willingness to support job creation, highlighting recruitment conferences for Chinese firms to boost local employment in South Africa.”
Kenya, in contrast, is looking for more loans despite having a massive debt load that consumes about two-thirds of its annual income. This has recently sparked protests in the streets when the government attempted to impose extra taxes in order to close the budget gap.
To connect Kenya’s coast with neighbouring Uganda, William Ruto is working to secure funding for several infrastructure projects, such as the completion of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the construction of roads and dams, the creation of a pharmaceutical park, and the development of a technologically advanced transportation system for Nairobi.
Four years ago, China stopped funding the disputed SGR that connected Nairobi to Mombasa, the port city. As a result, rail tracks ended in a field outside of Naivasha, a lake city.
China has frequently faced criticism for its transactions as a significant bilateral lender to numerous African nations, especially in the past few years as several African nations, including Ghana, Zambia, and Ethiopia, have encountered financial difficulties.
The banker
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed in a recent essay that one of his nation’s goals in foreign policy is to resist what he terms “hegemonic bullying” by the United States.
According to Wang Yi, among China’s circle of growing power partners which also includes Russia is Africa.
However, following ten years of loans focused on large-scale African government projects fuelled by the BRI, China has begun retooling its African approach.
Large African cities such as Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Luanda, and Lagos have all gained from new trains built by Chinese contractors and loans. However, many governments in these cities have taken on debt that threatens their political and economic stability.
With over $6 billion, China was Zambia’s biggest creditor when it went into default on its foreign debt in 2020.
Former US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Witney Schneidman said, “African countries should press this week on the Chinese being more transparent on debt reduction.”
Nonetheless, he thinks China cannot bear all the blame and looks forward to working with the other G20 nations.
“Every stakeholder has a responsibility to assist in resolving this; we require substantial debt reduction,” Schneidman added.
Analysts claim that China is currently displaying a risk-averse strategy to reduce its exposure to Africa.
According to Yunnan Chen, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute in London, there will be efforts to increase collaboration around more recent issues in addition to the multibillion-dollar commitments to trade and infrastructure.
She predicted that “green cooperation will be one of the headlines” because of China’s desire to increase demand for its vast electric vehicle, battery, and solar energy industries.
This is particularly true given that the IMF projects that China’s economic development will remain sluggish and advises African nations to adjust by strengthening their regional economic cooperation and enacting structural changes to boost domestic income.
“Above all, African leaders must overcome the velvet rope element of these summits to forge their own deals, set their own terms, and host their own parties,” Dr. Van Staden asserted.
The energy game
Eight years after the global financial crisis began in 2007 and two years after China unveiled the BRI, the energy financing industry peaked in 2015.
Contextualising this peak is another significant benchmark. The year 2015 saw the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement by 196 parties. In the same year, Egypt received public funding to enable the construction of what, if finished, would be Africa’s second nuclear power station. Finance has no discernible pattern following its peak in 2015. Finance had a severe fall in 2017, a recovery in 2020, and then another dip in 2021, most likely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on African economies.
The need for renewable energy technologies, such as solar or wind power, to reduce dependency on dirty energy sources has arisen from the global climate issue. A few years ago, China realised it had an opportunity to take the lead in this emerging market.
Africa is the home of several essential minerals required to develop renewable technologies, including lithium, copper, and cobalt, which are essential components in the production of batteries.
Thus, a rush for these minerals is occurring in Africa due to the race for green energy, with China, the United States, and Europe leading the way.
Five countries make up the majority of China’s mining footprint in Africa, which is far less than that of the West: Guinea, Zambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The DRC, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are the front-runners in Africa’s new green energy competition. They have the largest reserves of lithium, copper, and cobalt as well as Africa’s copper belt.
In particular, the DRC is significant. Together with lithium, it possesses sizable quantities of cobalt and high-grade copper. Cobalt is a metal that is exceptionally hard, magnetic, and has a high melting point. It’s an essential component of lithium batteries. The country produces over 70% of the world’s cobalt, with small-scale and artisanal mining accounting for 15% to 30% of production.
China is the largest foreign investor, controlling around 72% of the DRC’s operational copper and cobalt mines, which include the world’s second-largest cobalt mine and fifth-largest copper mine, Tenke Fungurume Mine.
The top cobalt mining firm in the world is CMOC Group, based in China. With the help of the recently opened Kisanfu mine, production might reach 70,000 tons. About 70% of the world’s cobalt and 60% of its rare earth production in 2019 came from the DRC and China.
China has also made investments in Zimbabwe as part of the global competition for green energy. Africa’s largest reserves of lithium, a necessary component for the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles, are found in Zimbabwe.
In 2023, Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, a Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt affiliate based in China, inaugurated a $300 million lithium processing facility. With an annual production of about 200 million tonnes worldwide, it can process 4.5 million tonnes of hard rock lithium into concentrate for export.
China is also making investments in Morocco’s first large-scale battery plant on the continent.
The world’s largest undeveloped high-grade iron ore deposit, located in Guinea, is likewise open to Chinese development. Steel, which is produced from iron ore, is essential to the renewable energy industry in several ways. Several nations have agreed to share the Simandou iron ore resource. Among the participants is Chinalco, a massive steel manufacturer. The first production is scheduled for early 2026.
Through extensive investments in infrastructure, social services, and mineral extraction, China has positioned itself as Africa’s largest trading partner and a key player in the green energy race. However, this relationship is not without controversy, as concerns over debt sustainability and political dependencies grow.
For African nations, the challenge lies in balancing these foreign influences while striving for self-determined development and sustainable economic partnerships.