 Good afternoon, my name is Andrew Scobel and I'm a distinguished fellow for China at the United States Institute of Peace Thank you for joining us in this important conversation on Chinese mineral interests in Africa For those of you unfamiliar with the Institute, the US Institute of Peace is a national non-partisan independent Institute founded by Congress and dedicated the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible Practical and indeed essential for US and global security The Institute pursues its mission by linking research policy training Analysis and direct action to support those who are working to build a more peaceful and inclusive world today's event Focuses on a topic that cuts across many themes that we work on here at the Institute specifically China's political and economic interests around the world the influence of Chinese quasi party hyphen military hyphen state actors on Human security and the agency of local populations and governments in shaping the outcomes In absolute terms Chinese mining investments in Africa lag well behind those of the biggest Western companies like Anglo-American and Rio Tinto But standing behind China's nascent mining firms are its factories with a seemingly insatiable industrial appetite Often importing African minerals extracted by US companies to make tech products for US consumers These economic forces are powerful and often intersect with America's own political and corporate interests Forcing us to think critically about the role we can play in mitigating harmful effects We are joined today by three leading expert on these issues Coming at them from a variety of Perspectives, we're extremely grateful to have them here today Thank you for all of you who are joining us online and in person in the auditorium without further ado like to hand it over to my Distinguished colleague from the Africa Center Tom Sheehy to introduce the speakers Tom Thank You Andrew. My name is Tom Sheehy I'm USIP's Africa Center where we focus on building peace and security The issue of how Africa African countries develop their critical resources is essential to building peace and stability This isn't just an issue of economic development. It's not just an issue of geopolitical competition Sadly the history of Africa has all too many cases of natural resources being exploited In fueling conflict. We're seeing that for example today in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique Our focus today is on China and its development In the the African mining sector and obviously they're they're dominant as we'll hear But we'll certainly discuss the role of the United States As we know there's been unprecedented attention paid by the US over the last few years towards Africa's critical mineral section Mineral sector and the goal obviously is to have a mutually beneficial relationship That develops these minerals in a way that works for African citizenry and also US interests So we're very privileged to have an excellent panel here today discuss this topic of China's critical mineral supply chains in Africa It's my pleasure to introduce Brianna Boland She's a research associate for the Freeman chair in China studies at the Center for strategic and international studies Where she supports the program's research on party state governance and evolving political discourse in China Prior to joining CSIS Brianna work is a political risk analyst at Denton's Researching China's economic policy and shifting trends in US-China relations for the firm's international clients Brianna holds a BA in international studies with minors in economics and Chinese language from Fordham University Eric Olander is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the China Global South project an independent nonpartisan multimedia initiative dedicated to exploring China's engagement in Africa throughout the developing world Eric is a longtime China watcher with more than 25 years of Journalism experience at many of the world's leading media companies Including CNN the BBC in France 24 He received his undergraduate degree in East African history from the University of California at Berkeley and holds a master's degree in Chinese Public affairs from the University of Hong Kong Lauren Heiser Recy is the program director of environmental change and security program at the Wilson Center Where she develops transdisciplinary solutions to environmental and natural resource development and security challenges as the managing editor editor new security beat Lauren holds an MA in environmental security and peace from the University of Peace in Costa Rica Lauren has an impressive list of publications to her name is do all our our panelists So thanks to all of you for sharing your experience. I'll ask each panelist to make opening remarks And we'll get to audience discussion Eric you're up. Okay Thank you Tom. Thank you USIP for being here if we could get my PowerPoint on what I'm gonna do today Just in very quick five or six minutes is try and set the benchmark for some facts and to put some Context to this because the discourse about Chinese mineral and mining activity in Washington oftentimes I think is distorted borderline Bad and oftentimes just wrong and particularly on the hill for those of you watching online. This is really meant for you Let's talk about kind of where the Chinese are so in our group. We really don't like the word Africa In part because Africa flattens this very large diverse continent when we're talking about the Chinese in Africa You can see the presence is quite wide, but it's not equally Equally distributed. There's really five countries that dominate the Chinese mining presence in Africa Guinea which we're going to talk about Zambia South Africa South Africa is a very important case because it's not only a center of mining But it's also a logistics and transit hub for mining as well So a lot of mining that comes out of South Africa for the Chinese is brought from other countries in Southern Africa as well Zimbabwe is emerging now as a major player in lithium in particular and there's a lot We can talk about in terms of processing Zimbabwe is there and then of course there's the big guy the DR Congo and we'll talk a lot about what they're doing Also very important. We just like we don't like the word Africa the word China and Chinese is also problematic as well there's China Which is again? These are legal entities. These are large industrial state-of-the-art Mining activities mining companies and mining processing facilities So if you look at the Tenge Fuku Rume mine in in the Congo again One of the problems we have is that on the hill in particularly in the discourse here is when they say Congolese and cobalt the words child mining always comes up that is An absolute distortion of the reality in part what we're seeing in the places like the Congos the industrial mining activities by the Chinese are large sophisticated and very very advanced also their state owned oftentimes not always but their state backed in many respects and They have lots of government and embassy support then throughout Africa We also see a very large informal a Chinese mining sector. These are the oftentimes illegal immigrants or their gray markets They operate illegally and they are an enormous headache for the Chinese embassies So again, I think it's really important that when we distinguish between China and Chinese state actors and non-state actors Now this is the one that I think surprises the most and I'm glad that this was mentioned in the beginning because normally this is not mentioned the total mining output of All of Chinese mining output from Africa. This is 2018 data So it's a it's about 6.7% the number now people believe is about 8% Let me just repeat that 8% of Africa's mining output goes to all Chinese companies That is about half the size of just one company Anglo-American So we have a tendency sometimes to over inflate the importance of the Chinese in the African mining sector The Africa the Chinese are very important in certain countries like Guinea like the Democratic Republic of Congo Into some extent even in South Africa in Zimbabwe But when we talk about Africa and we talk about China again these that flattens a lot of it But this is really really important to understand the context with what we're talking about in terms of total Chinese output The fact is that Glencore is almost the same size as what China does and all of the Chinese actors combine Do and we see this reflected in the trade data So this is 2021 the numbers really haven't changed that we're looking at about 71% of all Chinese of all African exports to China come from just five countries a lot of that is made up of mining and most of that comes From three countries in particular. So when I say there's a very distorted trade relationship It's not a very equal relationship. It's spread. It's not spread equally So again, that's why China and Africa become really quite problematic And so it requires a little bit more nuance than I think a lot of us are accustomed to when we're dissecting this this debate So we have just launched and I hope you'll start to take a look at it The first indexing of the entire cobalt supply chain in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is launching next week It's available in French right now. It'll be available in English This is the address which you can go look at it right now What we did is we actually just knocked on the door of the Congolese mining ministry and said Could you give us your data and they went? sure and So we have five years of data From the Congolese mining industry that shows Everything about what they're doing in cobalt and copper This here shows you the activity of all of the the mining entities that are present that big giant Blotch in the middle is the 10k fungerou may mine and that is about if I if I'm correct I think about 12% of the world's cobalt output just comes from that single mine. It is enormous I've talked to a number of US government officials and they look back and they say one of the greatest strategic mistakes that they've made in the Modern era was letting Freeport McMoran sell that to the Chinese to China Molly. So that was done in 2018 So China's dominance in the Congolese mining sector is in part facilitated by American companies Very interesting that the data starts to show is that we talk about the Chinese and Congo as if the Chinese are The largest most dominant player turns out that Glencore is consistently the largest exporter Far more than the Chinese are now when you add up all the Chinese entities that is the big State-owned entities like what sickle means is doing together with the private entities like China Molly's doing Combined with all the middlemen and all the small little informal ones Then the Chinese output is larger than anybody else, but as an individual entity Glencore is the largest from Switzerland So what again? This is really important because this type of distinction is not made in a lot of the discussions about the Congo in Specific and the mining very quickly the other part that I think will be of interest to this audience in particular is We hear a lot about de-risking and decoupling China from the global supply chain The data we have the data of where all the Of the cobalt is going all the middlemen who are doing it and what you're gonna find is it's all been put into a blender and Mixed up together. There is no way to separate the Chinese from the cobalt supply chain coming out of the Congo It's just impossible Samsung. We've tracked Trafigura Samsung and even some of the joint ventures. It's all mixed up together It's Chinese truckers. It's Chinese middlemen. It's Chinese shipping companies. It's Chinese. It's maybe a joint venture on Ivanhoe The Canadians who are doing it and so there's this fantasy that I hear a lot here that we're going to somehow create a cobalt Supply chain that is independent of the Chinese that will not happen in the Democratic Republic of Congo You can see this in our data which shows exactly how integrated and mixed up it is The last point that I'll make here is just these are the supply chains this is very interesting so Lubito is the port of Lubito is the dream of the United States to make it the new Durban Right now there are basically three ports of exit for most of the cobalt that's coming out And this is going to be the focus for the US government is now how to build new supply chains that a get away from the Port of Durban the port of Durban is shut down last year three times due to force majeure Climate change issues social unrest the port of Barra the ports of Dar es Salaam and Increasingly Lubito the United States is focusing a lot of effort on developing the Benguela corridor and the Lubito corridor In order to use that as a way to reduce dependence on Durban The mining companies want to and the Chinese as well want to reduce the the emphasis on Durban and Valvis Bay in Namibia is another one that's all fighting for a share of the copper cobalt Supply that's coming out of the southern DRC and southern Zambia So we have a lot more information available on our site I want to give all the credit for the data to our francophone Africa editor Jero Nima He's a resource that is fantastic on this and I'll leave it there. Thank you, Eric Brianna Thank you Eric for all of that context. I've also always enjoyed reading your stuff learning about That although I guess you don't like just exactly that term So for my part in the panel, I want to talk a bit about our recently concluded CSIS project CCP Inc which looked at how an ecosystem of Chinese state and commercial actors Worked together in different international contexts and kind of get into the details of how that happened on the ground and kind of picking up on some of Eric's points One of some of the main takeaways that there's a lot of complexity in how these things work there's a lot of different types of Chinese actors not even getting into the independent non Links that you were talking about in the Congo. There's private companies state-owned companies different types of state-linked banks diplomatic actors and they operate differently in different industrial contexts But what is a kind of clear takeaway from our project Is that there's a very different sort of supportive ecosystem that Chinese companies often operate in that's really different than what you see for Western companies so as we talk about the United States trying to compete with China in certain of these Context it's important to kind of understand how that works And how that does and sometimes does not serve China's national interests or these companies commercial interests So one of our project case studies looked at Guinea, which as Eric mentioned is very important for China in terms of Mainly bauxite and also emerging iron ore Which are the two critical inputs for making aluminum and steel and our case study looked specifically at Those two industries and focused in on this one entity called the SMB winning consortium which was a consortium of Chinese and Chinese linked organization Companies as well as some international companies And it became a very important player in Guinea's bauxite sector and we saw at play like several elements of state support that helped to Silitate that and to support some be winning as well as other Chinese companies in the sector which included Financing diplomatic support, but one of the really key takeaways that we found from that was a big benefit of this ecosystem was also this sort of networked effects of Having other Chinese companies not just in mining exactly really in transportation and logistics and having those connections between companies Support everyone's projects. So in the case of bauxite, there was a key part of the success of that Expansion was the ability to tap several Chinese state-owned enterprises to build a huge railway as well as partner with the Chinese Company to actually ship the bauxite to China And then this became even clearer when we moved to so first SMB winning this consortium gained a really significant stake in any bauxite sector and then looked to iron ore at this Mine in completely the other side of Guinea called Sumando Which is a has a huge supply of Iron ore but is in a really remote area. That's not as well connected to the rest of the country's infrastructure And so when SMB winning did win a stake in Sumando actually beat out a competitor Largely according to industry reporting on the fact that it could promise to build rail and port infrastructure And then we see as this has progressed. It's once again Become a situation where Chinese SOEs are able to help with building that infrastructure So that's just one example of how looking at this case of you know What is China's footprint in Africa's critical mineral supply chain? You get down to the details There's a lot of diverse actors involved And sometimes the strengths that the Chinese Ecosystem can bring to bear Are not always just about the mining companies, but also about the other companies that are involved And kind of the last point on why it's important to look at these diverse different actors Is that it's very important to kind of parse out what interests are at play and driving these projects forward and From our our project focused a lot on how does China sort of transmit a policy goal down to the actors on the ground And how does it get those actors and those different companies to sort of fall in line with the national interest? And so through these financing Mechanisms and through these different relationships and state-owned enterprises. There's a lot of ways to incentivize projects that are in sort of China's national interest But at the same time what we consistently saw across a lot of different international contexts as well as guinea is that this is really a core a commercial Enterprise so as we're thinking about how to sort of you know If the US thing about how to compete and also especially when we're thinking about human security implications of These different projects proceeding. It's really important to kind of center that commercial aspect Even when we're talking about divisions between US versus Chinese companies Thank You Brianna, and I think your focus on guinea and Eric's focus on DRC really makes the point that every country is different It's very important to look at the Chinese presence. It is going to differ quite Quite dramatically. There's no Africa as you say Lauren. Yeah, but I'm gonna blow back out I Want to thank us IP for hosting this discussion today and Tom I think you know you wrote a recent article on critical minerals in Africa's future And I thought that it really did a nice job of laying out the complexity of the issue And so welcome the opportunity today to unpack some of that complexity with my fellow panelists But I want to start with a couple of key points I think there's been a lot of renewed attention to Mining activities in Africa what China's role is And I think while the focus is on Today's discussion is on China in Africa. We need to be really clear-eyed about the legacy of resource extraction It's not just Chinese companies who have a bad record of environmental and social and human rights abuses Especially when you're talking about African countries where colonial powers and transnational mining companies have a Sort of long legacy of wreaking havoc in the 19th and 20th centuries So where social and environmental safeguards aren't in place Extractive industries have historically extracted a high price on local communities And so regardless of the urgency of the climate price crisis and the importance of these minerals to power a clean energy Future this is a point that cannot and should not be ignored in any discussion A second point I wanted to underscore is one that both Eric and Brianna made which is we can't speak about China as this Monolithic entity and that's I think it serves some purpose here in DC that we need to be clear-eyed about as well That being said China does I think have a strong presence in Africa and actually I have some I have like follow-up questions And I hopefully will have some time in the discussion because Eric some of the points you made were really interesting to me But I've been asked to speak about the human security impacts And so I'm gonna focus on three areas of primary concern One is the labor and human rights abuses one is the environmental impacts and third is governance impacts So let's start with the labor and human rights abuses Eric you mentioned child labor in mining and you know in the DRC there are I think more than 40,000 children working in artisanal cobalt lithium and rare earth element mining And Chinese presence has only exacerbated that issue there was a Congressional hearing in 2022 and a prominent Congolese civil rights attorney pointed to the fact that when it comes to artisanal mining oftentimes it's Congolese miners who own the mines in name only and that it's actually the Chinese companies who are the actual owners and operators And so I that's one thing I'd like to come back to and see if there's transparency there And if there's you know if that is understood and accounted for You know children are working seven days a week for over 12 hours a day. They're exposed to all sorts of Injuries and disease and long-term impacts not to mention the fact that they're not in school, right? Environmental degradation is another major area of concern and you know look by by it's very definition mining is Going to impact the environment, right? But there has been progress in technologies and there are better environmental safeguards in place but these But oftentimes we're finding that Chinese owned entities aren't carrying out adequate environmental impact assessments or upholding those safeguards So we see significant issues like deforestation and habitat destruction as forests are clear to make way for mining infrastructure There are concerns with with water contamination and proper handling of mine tailings and wastewater can mean release of toxic Substances into rivers and streams that local communities are dependent on right for their for their livelihoods for their health and well-being Mining activities can also lead to soil erosion and degradation and reduced agricultural productivity for surrounding areas lacking pollution control measures air pollution and dust emissions including fine particulate matter can have it There's effects on community health and the surrounding environment as well And these impacts often outlive the mine itself in Central African Republic for example Amnesty International reported that in the wake of four Chinese gold mining companies departing in 2027 people died at the abandoned mining sites and the Uhum River a source of food and water for the Local community was dangerously polluted with mercury due to mining related contamination So that's look now at the context of governance and the impacts of Chinese mining investments in many of the places And I'm sorry because I fully agree that we cannot talk about 54 countries in Africa as one and even within those countries There's going to be a lot of diversity, right? So apologies in advance for sort of speaking at this 30,000 foot level But in many of the places where these critical minerals are found government struggle with weak institutions with corruption with ongoing Conflict dynamics which complicate their ability to ensure that mining operations are benefiting local communities and that they are following existing legislation Chinese investors and operators have been heavily criticized for inadequate investment in local development and for undermining local employment Research published by the German Institute of Global and Area Studies found that while non non Chinese mining Operations are associated with higher employment rates in surrounding areas Proximity to Chinese controlled mines was not shown to lower unemployment risk Many of the communities where these resources are located lack access to essential health services to education to employment The DRC where mining sector investments and exports are key Drivers of growth is ranked among the top five poorest countries in the world 70% of that country's population is living below the international poverty line There's a long history of conflict and then stability and an ongoing human humanitarian crisis in that country 2019 was the country's first peaceful transition of power after 62 years of independence There's been progress but insecurity does persist in some parts of the country and that has an impact on their ability to ensure that these mining operations are enforcing legislation and protecting communities I you know all of our panels I think have sort of mentioned this and or written about it China has a multi-year decade head start on the US when it comes to its presence in Africa on critical minerals And the US is playing catch up We hosted John Podesta at the Wilson Center recently and in response to a question about working with mineral producing countries He said that the first thing that we need to do is show up, right? We just we need to start by showing up. So, you know, I'd like to talk about where there are opportunities to show up and do better But starting with the context in which these dynamics are playing out So I'm gonna go even like maybe to the 50,000 foot perspective More and more there is a recognition that climate change is shaping our future But population trends are also changing populations are more mobile than ever. They're more urbanized than ever and And they're characterized by aging in some parts of the world and disproportionate youth in other parts as the renewable energy Transition shifts where investments and trade are happening. It's important to remember that how we prepare for shifting population trends We'll determine how sustainable equitable peaceful and prosperous our future is and many of you likely read a headline or two in The fall about the global population reaching 8 billion. That's nearly double. It was What it was when I was born not so long ago in 1980 but over the last several decades population trends have shifted and today Africa is the last remaining region with a rapidly growing population It's also the most rapidly urbanizing part of the world and the least energy consuming Region per capita and it's sitting on the front lines of climate change in a forthcoming paper for the Wilson Center authors Jack Goldstone and John may write that between 2020 and 2040 the world's population of 15 to 49 year olds will increase by 428 million of that 420 million will be African African youth will account for 98% of all the net labor force growth around the world That's astounding Gladstone and may argue that through investments in education and by providing African countries with the financing and Technology to achieve clean development. Africa's youth could transform the global economy So there's an opportunity through investments in the mining sector among others to realize co-benefits in employment and revenue generation In infrastructure education technology transfer peace and security Take for instance the fact that the minerals needed for the renewable energy transition are mined in 70 countries Where our own US agency for international development has a presence There's an opportunity for the US to show up to leverage tools across agencies to partner with private industry With country leaders and with civil society to meet the demands and ensure benefits are felt at the local level I want to say finally that The US and China have a shared interest in a reliable and affordable global supply of critical minerals And we should continue to look for ways to cooperate with China to raise global standards Like the point that Eric made we're not going to be able to separate ourselves out This is something that we're going to need to do together in some fashion and there. Thank you Thank You Lauren Eric Let's talk a little bit more about DRC Democratic Republic of Congo. We had President Cheshire kitty make a trip to Beijing recently and He was fetid and the red carpet treatment China obviously has an interest and what we're seeing is a dynamic where Congo is pushing back on some of the terms of the concessions the Deals that have been struck with China years ago and really throughout the continent We're starting to see more pushback against China whether be in the area of mining or debt for example in Zambia And so can you just briefly describe that dynamic of of the push and pull and in Brianna and your research you've looked at Guinea and there were similar situations where the Chinese concessions were Renegotiated or at least the National governments are looking for better deals from China. How does that play out and how should US policymakers think about that? Good Eric, okay, so we'll talk a little bit about the politics of the DRC I'm a little bit of an outlier in this space and I caused a little bit of a uproar a couple weeks ago when I Wrote a column that said Felix Chesa Cady went to China was a total waste of time and boy That just went completely boom in the Congolese Twitter space so the dynamics here are Be very clear that Chesa Cady and Nicholas Kazati the finance minister have made it very clear that they are not targeting the Chinese specifically Let's be abundantly clear that it was Freeport Mick Moran that understated the reserves in the TFM mine Prior to the Chinese buying it over So this is not a problem the corruption is not a problem unique to the Chinese and I think that is overlooked that we are Absolutely complicit in that as well and the Congolese mining sector is a dirty dirty space Everybody's hands are dirty in the space So it is disingenuous to simply isolate the Chinese and say that they are different now We are seven months now before an election Chesa Cady goes to Beijing He is feted he is given the the full red carpet treatment on Chang'an Avenue and at the Tiananmen Square in the Great Hall of the People and he got nothing more than a pat on the back and a thank you for coming Meanwhile President Castro from Honduras came a week later She left with billions stuffed in her pocket the economy minister of Argentina not even the head of state When he came back with something like 12 billion dollars worth of incentives and investments and everything else like that. Why? because at the end of the day the Chinese in my view and Again, our team is a little bit of an outlier on this look at Chesa Cady and say, you know what? You messed with our money You blocked up a billion and a half dollars of cobalt You've been very close to Mike Hammer the US ambassador Chesa Cady came into power in part because of the consent of the United States Government which by the way for all the wonderful talk about democracy and and a good clean elections That election was not a clean election by any measure in the United States very quickly came in and said we like Chesa Cady So the Chinese have always been a little bit standoffish. So imagine Seven months before an election Chesa Cady goes in the hope of trying to get something to show that he has delivered on his promise That he's going to get some quality in these contracts and the Chinese probably said I have no inside knowledge on this You know what we're gonna see what happens We're gonna see what happens in seven months if you're still around and at the same time by the way ambassador jiu-jing last year Is high-profile photographs of him and Moses Katoombi the opposition leader out of in the in Katonga Beautiful all-day thing where Moses is taking him around to his plantations and to his farms and everything like that to send a message both to Chesa Cady and to some of the folks in this room That says the Chinese say we have options and we're prepared to exercise those options So the Chinese remember have been playing the game in the Congo for 20 years now They're good at it. They're very good at it. They know how to play the politics They know how to play the mining game And so the dynamics between the Chinese Seamock China Mali Siko means CNMC Zhejin They've got people have been there for 15 years who know how to play this game in one of the most difficult parts of the world to do business When we talk about that we are going to compete with the Chinese and the drc I ask you how many people do we have who've got 20 years of experience working in the mining sector in one of the most dangerous Volatile unstable places in the world So the politics are in motion right now Everybody's waiting for the election to take place next year once the election is settled I think we'll see a shift either the Chinese will then double down on Chesa Cady and say great You're our guy or they'll have a new president Whether it's Katoombi or somebody else and they'll probably go with that as well. Thank you Breanna you've looked at Kenny where where we have similar Chinese dominance much like in Congo and cobalt and iron ore and Foxite and you describe the the ecosystem that they bring they bring financing They bring infrastructure. They bring diplomatic support. They bring a whole whole package and the us in the last couple of years has been Really trying to up its game I actually the the administration uses that language about upping the game and we have the development finance corporation We have the xm bank. We have the trade and development agency do How do you look at this? Do you do you think those tools are going to get us into the game? Do you think there there's enough there to be competitive and in Guinea or Congo? I think Eric's made his point about the Congo, but How do you see the the us effort? Um, yeah, well speaking to Guinea I'll just add on a bit about the dynamics what Eric was saying I think it's really telling of how different the contexts are of the Relationship between the guinea like guinea's government trying to potentially renegotiate things just looks very different and you know, you've had a lot of Had quite the last three years in Guinea with a coup d'etat and then some Big moves of the new military into government trying to renegotiate things in iron ore So there's it's also like a very different dynamic based on local politics In terms of the us sort of trying to build out its own say ecosystem for supporting these I think it's The sort of short answer would be it's not very comparable It's not on the same scale The kind of longer answer might be that the comparing to china Has maybe pretty sometimes pretty limited utility in that it's just going to look very differently How the us is trying to build out its own competitive infrastructure so And by infrastructure I mean sort of this business ecosystem And one of the real strengths can be that you know, we're not trying to replicate china's system of very close relations to its companies, you know, we're not a state capitalist Country, so it's it's going to be a different sort of format The types of investments that are being made now by like the Dfc are really not on a scale of what we've seen from china in the past But I think it will also be interesting to see how china's own investment flows are changing You've seen a real drop off on investment since the pandemic and a lot of signals that china's also changing the way that it is approaching Lending and so on to these types of big projects So it's not just that the us is changing and ramping up As you say our strategy china is also changing. So there's a lot of converging dynamics there the other thing I would just add in is that What looks very different from china is that there is a deliberate effort to Kind of center partnership in us strategy on expanding this kind of critical mineral ecosystems You've got like the mineral security partnership and much more efforts to work with partner countries, which You don't see in the same case with china I will play out very differently as well great Lauren you had mentioned our artisanal mining and that's very different from the Commercial gray or commercial scale mine that we see in drc, for example What what are the environmental considerations that we should make when it comes to our artisanal mining? Yeah, I mean, I think they're they're you know, the similar to what I Remarked that I made previously thinking about sort of the impacts on on land and deforestation On the sort of legacy the legacy of mining current and then after the mine has closed on the the water Water availability and the cleanliness of the water On ecosystems, I think one of the interesting things about Some of the pushback we're seeing from african civil society is this recognition that it's not You can't protect the community without protecting the environment, right? And so this recognition that these are not two sort of different fights. This is one of the same fight and one sort of Necessary pushback to mines that are not upholding these safeguards And so I think that's an important piece of this equation is it's not a conservation issue, right? And it's not a community development issue. It's like an all of society issue. And so being able to Sort of work across the scales of decision-making. It's as you think about the Civil society responses that we're seeing there they're from the grassroots up all the way to the sort of international, right? And they're leveraging International treaties and norms are leveraging national courts and they're they're leveraging grassroots ability to document projects to protest to come out in force, right? And so and that's that's going to be important in making sure that as these mining projects do take hold That they're done in a way that benefits the local community and meets those those country and international needs Great, I think now we can go to the audience perhaps if we have any questions out there Sir We have a mic if you could just hold on for 30 seconds I think maybe in the meantime what we have a question from Zoom from our webinar How much is china's investment in western mines in africa motivated by wanting access to western mining technology? What is some of the reper repercussions does anyone have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean I don't see any evidence that the chinese are looking for western mining technology because chinese mining technology is Very advanced and very sophisticated So and also they're not investing in western mines. They're acquiring western mines and that is not the same as taking the technology So, uh, I don't think that's an issue Okay So I thank you very much. Uh, my name is ken broken shire. I'm state department senior fellow At usip and this question's for eric. Okay, however, I welcome any other answers as well the question is What uh, what role does does the mining of strategic minerals have In the conflict in eastern drc How much of that conflict is driven by economic reasons and by mining? Uh, my understanding. I mean the eastern drc is not a major mining zone for cobalt Uh, which is the main or lithium. So that conflict it pre existed a lot of the The drive for cobalt in lithium and there's only a little bit of lithium mining going on in the congo, but it's going to be more Um, so those I think are two separate issues the issues of you know, again this eastern drc in south kivu north kivu province And yuturi province, um are vastly more complicated than the mining mining is a part of it But a lot of it is informal mines a lot of it is much more smaller scale It's not these industrial mines that we're seeing in luwala ba province in katanga province So I think those are generally separate issues You also have in the eastern drc this question of all the other international actors yuganda Rwanda, uh, all the un is all there. So those are two I think separate issues the strategic minerals and the eastern drc and the fighting that's going on Please sir Hi, good afternoon. My name is knee Simmons. I'm at uh, I'm a Not resident senior fellow at the land council and center for global development um I think One of the things that I I hear quite a bit about is um First of all, I'm gunny american both my parents are from gunna I don't hear much about supporting africa's rise when it comes to um Economic development valley addition I think If you talk to and I wish there was somebody from in diaspora african on the panel I think that was a mistake But I think one of the things that we as africans africans in diaspora are asking ourselves is well As we get to 2.5 billion by 2.20 50 How come there isn't a question about supporting indigenous african companies, you know Just like the asian countries were supported in the 70s 60s and 70s southeast asia and malaysia thailand us and other western countries Built and supported r&d center supply chains everybody's Focus on securing Our raw materials whether it's the chinese americans whoever swiss only So I'll I'll I'll be very interested. Yes. There's human rights abuses. We all know that but I think if you can support the growth on the content from economic development lens And give the same type of partnership a collaboration the southeast asia got back in the 60s 70s africa, you know, we have our own issues with Eminence our leaders have whatever but I just want to get your thoughts on that. I guess eric. That's Thank you very much Thank you. Who would like to feel that I haven't thought on that. Um, so I think it's um a great point of like the need to Refocus the conversation as well. I mean is that I'm here on this panel as a china focused person I think that's really a sign of where the conversation is at in washington In a lot of ways of what brings interest to this is coming through often a very security very china focused lens um, and so in order to kind of if Yeah, I can ideally use that as an entry point then broaden the conversation To looking at more of the local impact and so on I think you see this at a rhetorical level in some ways in um, some government policy, but I don't know if eric has more thoughts on how that's actually Yeah, I mean, let's be let's be very clear in the past 20 years the chinese have lent or invested 153 billion dollars mostly in infrastructure And a lot of that is in power infrastructure rail infrastructure And a lot of that was for the growth and development that was african led by the way that was not chinese led The standard gauge railway was a kenyan project when we look at the power plants and whatnot. These are african led So I think if you look into a lot of the china africa Development history of the past 20 years you will find what you're looking for It's not in a security context It is oftentimes again We look at the roads the rails all these different things the light rail in ethopia The the blue line in nigeria These are these are african infrastructure issues in terms of moving up the value chain what you talked about The big problem is power in order to process minerals requires an extraordinary amount of electricity And power and that's been the problem in zimbabwe and now the problem in namibia Is they don't have the power supplies to process that that that resource so investing in electrification and power generation Is going to be the key to going to the next level to do exactly what you're talking about And the questions will the us or others do that? Where will the capital come from to make that investment? Uh, so yes, that was what I was trying to say in my presentation So i'm sorry that I missed the point. I mean the future of the workforce is in africa Right, so it's investing in infrastructure and power But it's also investing in expertise and education and making sure that the girls go to school And that we're sort of investing in the the people right and and in those investments having those investments driven by what African communities are asking for and recognize as their points of resilience But also where they see risks right and making those investments so that you can address those risks and build up their resiliencies and so I think This is where the us has an opportunity To leverage its international development space and to leverage this diplomatic relationships and to end to put sort of Build those relationships on the ground so that they can be That those investments can be shaped by those relationships and by those conversations I think, you know Getting to the point about the value added processing. I mean it is advanced technologies and specialized expertise It's incredible amounts of financing that's needed and it's a really long timeline too for a lot of these projects So pairing that with these investments at the community level I think would help to ensure that that sort of long-term vision is is achieved and realized Good. Thank you We've got a question that's come in and it's very much related to to the issue of value added and that is Increasingly we're seeing some african countries impose or at least a few export bands So we've seen that was in bobway on lithium and namibia likewise How does that dynamic play out and I know eric we've spoken about You had mentioned that Forcing value addition at the local level may actually not benefit african nations in the way that we think it may not have Broad economic impact impacts in terms of employment and investment So if you could briefly address that the most advanced example of the export bands and the local processing is indonesia right now on the nickel band And what we are finding in indonesia is that the chinese now are actually moving to dominate the Processing of the nickel and most of the value is actually floating up to the chinese even in the processing So processing is not a magic bullet or a silver bullet for adding value to the local economy And the indonesians by the way are also being very lax on their Labor enforcement and their environmental governance So again these export bands they sound good. They're good for politics. They're good for domestic politics The assumptions are going to capture more value locally But if foreign actors come in to dominate the supply chain and dominate the processing And then the logistics then a lot of that value isn't captured by local stakeholders It's captured by the chinese and others So namibia is the newest in terms of imposing an export band zimbabwe is struggling with theirs zimbabwe got screwed because They were counting on the senhua power plant a coal power plant financed by icbc for about three billion dollars Xi Jinping went to the un two years ago and said we're not financing coal anymore So that's what undermines zimbabwe's ability to process locally for all these new lithium mines So again, we have a lot of moving parts here between Governance regulation in terms of who can own the processing the environmental and the labor part and then of course This this infrastructure is going to be key to it So i'm not sure that a lot of african countries are ready for it in terms of the infrastructure capacity To impose the export bands, but i see where the motivation is Right, i think we have a question up here Hi there, my name is lily pike. I'm a china reporter with the messenger and so my question will be china focused So i think my understanding of the us concern is that chinese investment in these mines will give Chinese companies an advantage in the energy transition upstream whether it be electric vehicles or batteries And then there's the separate concern that Chinese control of supply chains could be weaponized and threaten us national security I'm curious if you think either of those two concerns Are actually valid and if you've seen examples in which those two Scenarios have actually played out on the ground so far That's a great question I think that is really kind of the question Behind all of this is you know, what is the actual risk of these types of supply chains being weaponized? And you know one thing that came out of our project that we completed is When you're looking at you know china's control over supply chains or china's international projects It's very feasible and in some cases. It's very clear to see what are the conduits of influence That china has over these different companies Or what are the ways that china might be able to Utilize these when push comes to shove But it's less hard to parse out. Of course, you know, what is the intention behind that? I would say there's so you know there was a statement I saw from a US official quoted in the economist saying that the Intention of all of this was to ensure that china does not become an opec of one In the critical mineral space Which you know it says more about what the capabilities that they that the US official would was worried about more so than Exactly like what scenarios this might be used in At the end of the day, however, like as Eric Mentioned there's a lot of complexity in these supply chains And so you know as we're looking at what is the actual risk here and where could china? You know turn off the taps in some theoretical Scenario where we're at a more intense point of conflict You know it's important to look at get into the detail of how would that actually happen when we have such a complex supply chain And which of the supply chains should we actually be worried about? and of course Nobody wants us to move towards a conflict But there are people in the US government who their job is to think about what are those potential risks? and proof against that Great, I think up here Hi, thank you. First of all for having this fabulous panel. You're all wonderful. It's very interesting So I have a couple somewhat related questions The first is you're talking about the US wanting to go in Africa step up our game And I was wondering what is the US doing in the congo specifically both the government side and then also companies And then the other question is a couple of you mentioned how important it is for the US and china to be working together In addressing so many issues, but particularly with here with the africa focus Do you have any concrete suggestions of areas in which that would be possible given the current You know political context or how we might approach and start building toward Developing that kind of cooperation because I think we could be very complimentary in As well as cooperative in so many areas in in Africa. What do you think tucker carlson would say if there's a A cooperation with the chinese or mike mccall on the house on the hill or let's go to fox news jesse waters in prime time It's not possible Any cooperation is seen as appeasement by a lot of people in this town and The chinese are rightfully skeptical. However, there is a model for cooperation out there and it's the french The french have five development projects worth 1.7 billion dollars that they're building with the chinese in africa They jointly built the lecky port the they're working together on the east africa crude oil pipeline So the french are really pioneering a way where development again Some of it carbon based and not politically correct development But nonetheless there is a model for a western country to work with the chinese on development and economic issues Like ports and things like that in terms of what the americans are doing in the congo In the mining sector nothing zero There's not one single mining company from the united states that's active in the congo today free port mccmoran was the last one What they are therefore is a major diplomatic an enormous amount of aid money flows through the congo It's a major diplomatic front. It's a major point of great power competition with the chinese and others So there's a very active american diplomatic military security and aid presence in the drc, but not in the mining sector Okay, well, I'd like to finish up and focus on us policy We've spoken it to to to some extent, but if you had as we've discussed the administration is making a large commitment to critical Minerals in africa. We've got the expansion of the development finance corporation We have the pgii initiative the infrastructure. We have a mineral security partnership We have a memorandum of understanding with was in bobway Zambia and drc If we could just go down the line here and we only have a minute So i'm going to limit everyone to to one minute response if you had a recommendation Two policy makers. How can we do better or what what are we doing? Well? in terms of trying to Trying to help africans develop their critical minerals in a way that that works for africans works for development Does not exacerbate conflict learn you you've laid out It's a pretty troubling past and really I think we have to be realistic and recognize that this is a steep climb But I think most people in washington would recognize china's going to be there france is going to be there turkey's going to be there Every other country in the world is going to be in africa. So we we might as well be in the game. So Again one minute We're going to get in the game. What would your recommendation be to to best play that game And I think to go in with a very clear-eyed look of what are our goals and what are the Different contexts that we might be entering. So, you know, what are the minerals that we absolutely need to get involved with? If that's like from a perspective of us strategy and what are the different players already involved and so just treating it overall as the Very specified complex situation that it is in different countries and in different industries And forming strategy from that place up instead of Sometimes from looking at all of these things under the same category Tom everything you listed is aspirational What we need are wins on the board and you need to show results and you need to actually deliver And this goes to your point which is we need to show up We need to develop an expertise in africa and african issues. We need people on the ground We need young people to go there We need people to learn the languages the cultures and to respect the history But the proof points are what people are going to judge us on and if we only have aspirations and that mou doesn't come through Or pgi doesn't follow through Which has been our past 20 30 years in africa then no one's going to believe us Yeah, I would mean yes, absolutely Following on that we have a recent policy brief that we've published on u.s. governance on critical minerals And and two of the points that came out of that was the need for the u.s. Department partner meaningfully and in the long term with partner countries on Creating that value added and and allowing that Not allowing that's the wrong word Enabling some of that value added to to be a source of that partnership With producing countries the other point is to invest in livelihood diversification So that communities as the I think one of the two we didn't get into like sort of the Ups and downs of the market and what that can mean for communities, but investing in communities and Sort of broader economic development so that as the market goes up and down the Communities where a lot of these minerals are sourced aren't sort of left behind Well, I want to thank all three of you for for an excellent Presentations and I want to thank the audience on behalf of usip for tuning in I think we could go on and on This is such a rich topic and so so important important to the united states important to african development I think we've succeeded hopefully in touching on some of the complexities and nuances of Of what we have ahead of us and Again, thank you. And this is a continuing dialogue. It's Quite popular here in washington and hopefully we've we've shed some light on on some of these key issues So again, thank you very much