JOHANNESBURG—Chinese mining companies are colluding with organized crime groups, terrorists, and corrupt government officials to operate illegal mines in Africa and to effectively steal valuable minerals and metals, according to security experts and intelligence analysts.
Several foreign and African diplomats told The Epoch Times of rising tensions between Beijing and some African administrations because of the unfolding situation and the presence of Chinese criminals in their countries.
“There’s strong evidence that Chinese mining firms have funded Islamic militants to disrupt legal mining activities in several African nations,” said Jasmine Opperman, a security consultant based at the University of Pretoria.
“When the legal mining companies leave because of violent attacks by terrorists, the Chinese mining firms, sometimes supported by mafia-like groups, move in and take over the mines,” said the former South African intelligence agent, who advises international investors about extremism and political violence on the continent.
Economist David Ndii, founder of Kenya’s Institute of Economic Affairs, told The Epoch Times that African governments and private companies were making billions of dollars from Chinese investment, but this was “coming at a huge cost to the continent and its people.”
“It seems as if some of the Chinese then consider it their right to exploit the continent’s resources, including by means of illegal mining,” he said.
China’s metals industry can only maintain its massive size using imported minerals, according to mining experts. However, supplies are limited, so it’s turning to criminal groups who supply “extra” metals mined illegally to bolster Beijing’s metals sector.
Africa has nearly 75 percent of the world’s coltan, a mineral that’s already vital to modern life, as it’s used in electronic devices, particularly cellphones and computers, batteries for electric vehicles, and missile systems.
China began pouring investment into mining assets in Africa in 2013, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping unveiled Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
But many foreign policy analysts view the BRI as China’s attempt to gain political and economic leverage in more than 150 developing nations, and access to wealth and resources.
Initially, China’s big investments in Africa’s mining and mineral extraction industries, especially in countries such as the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia, were applauded on the continent, especially by business and political elites.
Now, after years of inaction, governments of countries strongly allied with Beijing are pushing back against alleged Chinese abuses.
Nigeria, a country that international affairs analysts consider to be moving closer to the West since Bola Tinubu was elected president in May 2023, has been particularly proactive against Chinese mining companies.
“The firm was using granite mined illegally to manufacture marble for local sale in Nigeria. Some suspects didn’t have work permits; the Chinese are coming into Nigeria on tourist visas and then they work,” EFCC Executive Chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede said.
Within eight months in 2023, the EFCC had arrested more than 80 Chinese “unlicensed mining operators,” he told The Epoch Times.
“They also seized almost 30 truckloads of different kinds of minerals.”
In September 2022, EFCC investigators arrested Chinese national Dang Deng, managing director of lithium mining firm Sinuo Xinyang Nigeria. He was charged with illegal possession of 25 tons of assorted crude minerals, was convicted, and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.
“My contacts in Nigeria tell me that Chinese mining firms have been making security deals with terrorist groups. The insurgents protect illegal mines against so-called outsiders, and shield the Chinese from infiltration and attack,” Ms. Opperman said.
The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria denied that its nationals were cooperating with terrorists, saying that it has always urged Chinese businesspeople to operate within the law.
China is particularly set on acquiring vast stocks of lithium, a metal used in the manufacture of a wide range of renewable energy products, including batteries.
Africa has some of the world’s largest lithium mines, including in the Congo, Mali, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
It found that the “rush” for Africa’s lithium, far from delivering a “just energy transition,” risked fueling corruption, as well as a range of other environmental, social, and governance problems.
“For generations, African nations have been exploited for their minerals, and as the demand for ‘[energy] transition minerals’ hots up there is a danger of history repeating itself,” the Global Witness report reads.
Chinese firms—including Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group, Chengxin Lithium Group, Yahua Group, and Canmax Technologies—had spent more than $1 billion since 2021 to purchase and develop lithium projects in Zimbabwe, Mr. Soda said.
He told the media in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare that most of these companies had built processing factories and were shipping lithium concentrates to China for “refined processing.”
The Global Witness investigation in Zimbabwe focused on the Sandawana mine, which is owned by companies linked to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front party (ZANU–PF), a close ally of the Chinese regime and CCP.
ZANU–PF has governed Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980.
“Despite an official ban on unprocessed lithium exports, the politically connected Sandawana mine appears to have been exempted, trucking thousands of tons of ore out of the country during 2023,” the Global Witness report reads.
Almost all of the lithium ended up being shipped to China, according to the report.
The accusations prompted an investigation by Namibian authorities. Afterward, a court found that Xinfeng had acquired the mine through bribery and fraud.
The judge in Windhoek concluded that Xinfeng had mined lithium by using permits intended for local small-scale miners.
“This seems to have allowed Xinfeng to start mining a major lithium deposit for as little as US$140, while dodging the need for an environmental impact assessment,” the Global Witness report reads.
“We’re grateful for our friendship with China and for the confidence it shows by investing in Namibia,” the country’s Minister of Mines and Energy Tom Alweendo told The Epoch Times.
“But that doesn’t mean we must look away from violations committed by rogue Chinese companies on our territory.”
Xinfeng had exported thousands of tons of raw lithium ore to China while failing to deliver on repeated promises to construct processing facilities in Namibia, he said.
The country’s government has since prohibited the export of raw lithium.
“We’ve decided to increase domestic processing and take advantage of global demand for metals used in clean energy,” Mr. Alweendo said.
In the Republic of the Congo, the government last year banned six Chinese companies from operating in the South Kivu region for illegally mining gold and other minerals.
Additionally, Global Witness linked Chinese companies to several cases of corruption related to lithium mining in Congo.
It mentioned in particular the Manono lithium deposit as raising “numerous corruption red flags.”
“The project appears to have generated as much as US$28 million for shell companies held by middlemen implicated in previous corruption scandals involving ex-President Joseph Kabila,” the group’s report reads.
“Furthermore, a senior official in current President Felix Tshisekedi’s party reportedly received $1.6 million in ‘commission’ from [China’s] Zijin Mining when it acquired shares in the project.”
“Anti-corruption agents in Congo have told me that the government-owned company that signed the Manono deal sold the rights to mine lithium to the Chinese at a suspiciously low price,” Ms. Opperman said.
Action against Chinese mineral extraction firms is happening across Africa at an “unprecedented” rate, she said.
However, Marcus De Freitas, senior fellow at the Policy Center for The New South, told The Epoch Times that abuses by Chinese mining firms were unlikely to deter African governments from forging even closer ties with Beijing.
“The results of Chinese investments in Africa have been much more positive than negative,” said Mr. De Freitas, who’s also a visiting professor of international law and international relations at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.
“All the roads, bridges, economic and trade cooperation zones, railways are funded by the Chinese government.
“That kind of stuff isn’t just wiped out because of the negative actions of a few Chinese mining conglomerates.
“You can’t get away from the fact that China recognized the importance of Africa decades ago, while the West only recently began focusing on the continent and regarding it as a development partner.”
In December 2023, British Robinson, coordinator for the Prosper Africa trade and business initiative—a program that connects U.S. and African businesses—announced that the United States had struck 547 deals worth $14.2 billion with African nations in 2023.
Judd Devermont, U.S. National Security Council senior director for African affairs, said that 2023 was a “record-setting year” for U.S.–Africa relations, with the United States following through on its commitment to invest $55 billion on the continent over three years.
Mr. De Freitas said the Biden administration had made a “good start” in Africa but that it would take the United States a “long, long time to come even close” to shrinking China’s “massive impact” on the continent.
“China has established itself across almost all sectors of the African economy, including agriculture, natural resources, manufacturing and trade, and logistics,” he said.
“One-third of Chinese companies have concentrated on manufacturing, one-quarter on services, and one-fifth on trade and real estate.
“These initiatives mean the Chinese footprint has increased to about 12 percent of Africa’s industrial output; that’s about $500 billion annually.
“When you look at the infrastructure sector, Chinese companies have nearly 50 percent of Africa’s contracted construction market.”
It would be a “good idea” for Africans to “keep a wary eye” on both the United States and China ... and their own leaders, Mr. Ndii said.
“As we enter a new era of great power competition, one that is increasingly centered on Africa’s mineral wealth, it’s essential that Africans and their civil society watchdogs guard against the continent once again becoming a victim of exploitation,” the Kenyan economist said.
“And we should bear in mind that often it’s been our very own leaders who have sold us out to foreigners, for their own selfish interests.”
