JABULANI SIKHAKHANE: China gets what it wants while Africa remains in dreamland

Jim Hacker, the ministerial character in Yes Minister, the British political satirical TV series of the 1980s, once remarked that speeches were always the same.

You can also expect the same tone and substance, as well as big smiles for cameras, from this week’s Forum on China-Africa
Co-operation — the latest in a series of gatherings that began 24 years ago. There will, as the joint statement issued by China and SA ahead of the gathering already signals, be much about the shared bonds among peoples of the Global South and future
co-operation. 

Grand commitments will be made by the Chinese and African leaders to strengthening economic ties. But by the time the next gathering takes place in three years, only the Chinese would have got what they wanted. Africans will still be in dreamland. 

That’s because the Chinese have a plan that sets out what they want from Africans and how to get it. Africans don’t, except in some vague terms. Across several countries Africans are murdering each other in wars they are fighting on behalf of their foreign masters. Sudan is a case in point. 

For China, two things stand out. The Chinese need the minerals that are key for the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

“The global push to mitigate climate change is driving a significant demand for critical minerals, vital for transforming the energy system and developing low-emission technologies,” the IMF wrote in April.

“Integral to this transition are electric vehicles, and renewable energy generation, both requiring more minerals than traditional fossil-fuel technologies. Sub-Saharan Africa, estimated to hold about 30% of the volume of world’s proven critical mineral reserves, is crucial for their supply,” the IMF wrote. 

Cobalt, which is used in battery manufacturing, is one such critical mineral. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is neither democratic nor a republic, sits on top of 80% of the world’s reserves. But Chinese companies mine most of it and therefore China now controls 70%-80% of cobalt refining (all done in China) and about half of global battery production. 

The people of Congo are in no better position than they were under the Belgians, who chopped their arms off to incentivise them to work harder. As I write, the DRC is the centre of a major mpox outbreak that is hitting the country’s babies hard. And the DRC has, as usual, extended a begging bowl to the rest of the world. 

There are reports by the US think-tank the Petersen Institute for International Economics and the Wall Street Journal that the Chinese are cranking up their manufacturing industries to deal with domestic socioeconomic challenges. To make this work they will need access to foreign markets for their goods. And some of these goods will flow to Africa. 

Africans, on the other hand, have neither a clue nor economic or political muscle. And they will, as they always have for donkey’s years, default to complaints about how unfair the world has been to the continent. The European colonisers came to harvest people and then minerals to fuel European and American economic growth and development. Now, it is the Chinese who come bearing loans and the offer to build stadiums and “infrastructure”. 

Africans have no sense of what they want and how to get it. Nor do they have a sense of urgency about flexing their collective muscle to squeeze the world’s superpowers for what is in the continent’s best interest.

Just look at the Lobito corridor, the rail line that runs straight from Kolwezi, where the DRC’s mines are situated, to Lobito, a port in Angola. The corridor is sold on the basis that it will cut the time it takes to transport DRC minerals to the rest of the world. Now, these are transported to Durban port, a journey that according to the Harvard International Review takes about a month.

The corridor is now backed financially by the Americans and the Europeans. As the Wall Street Journal reported in January 2024, American officials see the corridor as a sign that the US and its allies “can hold their own in the elbowing for economic position and political sway in Africa”. 

The DRC, Angola and Zambia — the three countries key to the corridor — have no elbow in the bigger economic game. They aren’t alone. Most African leaders aren’t about that. And this makes them pliable — the “happy to be here” kind of people — in these sorts of games. 

• Sikhakhane, a former spokesperson for the finance minister, National Treasury and SA Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.