Across Africa, Beijing’s mining dominance is now being scrutinised more closely, with a growing demand for fairer, more transparent partnerships
For two decades, Beijing has treated Africa’s mineral wealth as a strategic lifeline, locking up copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earths through infrastructure-for-resources deals and billions in loans. The arrangement has suited China’s industrial machine. For many African nations, the returns have been far less convincing.
Now the balance is shifting. From the Democratic Republic of Congo to Namibia, governments are testing the limits of Chinese dominance. They are renegotiating contracts, blocking new acquisitions, and seeking alternative investors from the Gulf, the West and beyond. Some, like Zimbabwe and Nigeria, are banning the export of unprocessed minerals to keep more value at home. Others are pressing for environmental safeguards and transparency clauses once absent from Chinese-backed projects.
The motivations are not purely economic. Communities have paid a steep price for poorly regulated extraction rivers poisoned, farmland destroyed, children pulled from classrooms into dangerous pits. And when local benefits are meagre, resentment festers. African leaders, sensing both domestic pressure and geopolitical opportunity, are recalibrating their partnerships.
China remains a formidable player. Its firms control half of Africa’s cobalt output, dominate copper production in the DRC, and enjoy unrivalled refining capacity. But the rise of technology-driven competitors such as KoBold Metals, backed by Western billionaires, shows that Beijing’s grip is no longer unchallenged.
This is Africa’s moment to set terms rather than accept them. It will require discipline: strong governance, contract transparency, regional coordination, and investment in local processing capacity. Without these, diversification could simply swap one dominant partner for another.
The global energy transition depends on the very minerals Africa holds in abundance. The continent’s leaders have the leverage and increasingly, the will to ensure that the next chapter is one of shared prosperity rather than extraction without end.