The Associated Press published on 14 August 2026 an article titled "Zambia Awaits Presidential Election Results. Here's Why China and the US May Be Interested" by Jacob Zimba.
Zambia awaits the results of an election that will decide whether President Hakainde Hichilema wins a second five-year term. Both China and the US are interested in Zambian copper and cobalt and hence the outcome of the election and its impact on each country.
China-Africa Security Radar published on 3 August 2026 an article titled "Fragmented Leverage: Why African States Call for Collective Bargaining but Prefer Bilateralism in Critical Minerals Negotiations" by Paa Kwesi Wolseley Prah.
The author explains how China and the United States seek advantage with African countries in bilateral negotiations in their quest for critical minerals. China exploits bilateral negotiations through processing dominance and bundled infrastructure-mineral deals. The United States pursues selective frameworks and corridor diplomacy.
Netherlands-based Lighthouse Reports published on 30 July 2026 a report titled "Congo's Hidden Uranium Exports."
China imports 95 percent of the cobalt exported by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Uranium is present in significant quantities in DRC cobalt. Chinese companies mine the ore, which is then refined in China.
China has added significantly to its nuclear weapons stockpile in recent years. Lighthouse Reports argues that China's increase in weapons far exceeds the uranium it mines domestically or that which it receives on the basis of reported imports. It concludes that much of the uranium for nuclear weapons is imported surreptitiously from the DRC.
The Atlantic Council published on 16 July 2026 a report titled "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of African Mining" by Anthony Carroll and Jef Karel Caers.
Colonial-era maps and infrastructure hinder access to the roughly 30 percent of global critical minerals in Africa. AI-powered mining and mapping tools could help expedite discovery, reduce drilling time, and modernize operations.
The United States should develop "smart mining" partnerships with African countries that advance US security objectives while providing long-term dividends for African nations.
Pan African Television posted on 8 July 2026 an article titled "Namibia's President Visits China for Talks on Minerals, Green Hydrogen, and Manufacturing" by Victoria Wilson.
Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is on a state visit to China. Her priority is attracting investment in minerals processing and downstream manufacturing. Namibia aims to process 57 percent of its exported minerals locally by 2030.
China-Africa Security Radar published on 5 July 2026 a commentary titled "China, the United States, and Africa's Green Minerals Vision" by Paa Kwesi Wolseley Prah.
In 2025, the African Union adopted a continental policy framework called Africa Green Minerals Strategy (AGMS), which aims to turn Africa's critical and green minerals endowment into sustainable, value-adding industrialization that supports a just energy transition and regional supply chain integration.
China has the processing capacity, investment scale, implementation speed, and institutional flexibility to advance African industrialization--but its commercial incentives run directly against allowing Africa to independently climb the value chain.
The US offers somewhat more transparent financing structures, stronger governance standards, and procedural models that on paper seem to better protect African states from debt traps--but it lacks the industrial ecosystem and the genuine political will to support African manufacturing rather than African extraction for American consumption.
Fox News published on 23 June 2026 an article titled "Trump Gets Major Win against China in African Rare Earth Minerals Race" by Paul Tilsley.
The United States has supported an American company, Virtus Minerals, in developing two major mines producing cobalt and copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the Trump administration's first critical minerals (not rare earths as the article asserts) win in the DRC.
Boston University's Global Development Policy Center published in June 2026 a paper titled "Development Quid Pro Quo: Chinese Finance and Critical Mineral Access in Africa" by Congyi Dai.
The paper explores whether China's development finance agenda is motivated by its global quest for natural resources, facilitating mine acquisitions in Africa. It uses four data sources to examine whether Chinese development finance is tied to the pursuit of critical minerals.
The paper concludes that minerals needed for clean energy technologies such as copper, cobalt, nickel, and platinum group metals are associated with Chinese loan commitments to recipient countries. Specifically, uranium is the mineral most strongly linked to Chinese development projects, particularly those including a substantial grant component and highly concessional repayment terms.
Modern Diplomacy published on 21 May 2026 an article titled "Geology Meets Geopolitics: The Global Race for Critical Minerals in the Climate Transition" by Marta Rehnman, Trinity College Dublin.
China dominates the processing of critical minerals in Africa and Latin America. Beijing has mining partnerships with 44 African countries. But the United States and European Union are stepping up competition for unexploited mineral reserves in both Africa and Latin America.
Rare Earth Exchanges published on 17 May 2026 an article titled "Africa Has Become the New Geopolitical Battleground for Critical Minerals."
The article summarizes a study that examines trade flows, foreign direct investment, military relationships, diplomatic agreements, mining policy, and strategic industrial initiatives shaping Africa's critical minerals economy. It evaluates how China, Russia, the United States, and Europe are accessing and responding to Africa's critical mineral wealth.
The entire study "In the Crosshairs: Twenty-first-century Rivalry for Africa's Critical Minerals" by Ron Matthews and Vlado Vivoda was published online on 11 May 2026 by the European Journal of International Security.
Ecofin Agency published on 20 April 2026 an article titled "China-Africa Trade: Windfall Gains for Resource Giants in Q1 2026, but a Deeper Structural Reality Behind" by Idriss Linge.
A small number of African countries--DRC (cobalt), Angola (oil), Guinea (bauxite), and South Africa (critical minerals) in the first quarter of 2026 captured the bulk of the gains in exports to China. The deeper story points to a structural shift in how Africa is being integrated into China's global economic strategy.
The growing trade between China and Africa is driven by Africa's extractive sectors with limited industrial spillovers and constrained economic transformation. Africa is becoming a critical outlet for Chinese industrial exports. The key question going forward is whether African economies can leverage this situation to move up the value chain.
Bankable posted on 7 April 2026 a commentary titled "Zijin, CMOC Back Competing Alternative to Lobito Corridor" by Pierre Mukoko.
China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and four Chinese companies are financing a $1.4 billion project to rehabilitate the Tanzania-Zambia railway that will transport critical minerals from the DRC to the Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam.
The Tanzania-Zambia railway will compete with the American and European Lobito Corridor project that will transport critical minerals from the DRC to an Atlantic Ocean port in Angola.
Mining Focus Africa published on 30 March 2026 an article titled "Democratic Republic of Congo and China Deepen Mining Ties Amid Global Minerals Race" by Michael Van Wyk.
The focus of the most recent China-DRC minerals collaboration includes geological data sharing, investment protection, and ensuring that more raw materials are processed in the DRC rather than exported in unrefined form. The agreement coincides with a US strategic partnership with the DRC aimed at boosting Western investment and reducing reliance on Chinese-controlled supply chains.
Discovery Alert posted on 18 March 2026 an article titled "US Push into DRC Copper and Cobalt Reshapes Global Mineral Security" by Muflih Hidayat.
US Project Vault is a $30 billion critical minerals investment framework. Rather than purchasing minerals on the international market, the US strategy involves deep capital investment in extraction, processing, and transportation infrastructure.
This contrasts with China's approach. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, Chinese entities control 15 major copper/cobalt operations representing billions of dollars in infrastructure investment accumulated over two decades. This strategy has created supply chains that flow predominantly to China, limiting Western access to critical minerals.
The comparison between Chinese billions already invested and American strategic financing reveals the challenge facing Western countries. China's established infrastructure relationships and operational experience provide significant advantages that cannot be overcome through financial resources alone.
Delaware-incorporated Farmonaut posted on 7 March 2026 a promotional piece titled "Cobalt Shares: China, Africa and the Global 2026 Refining Share."
In 2026, China will control over 75 percent of global cobalt refining capacity, although it mines less than 2 percent domestically. Africa, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo, supplies more than 70 percent of the world's cobalt, but refines less than 5 percent of its own product. This promotion looks especially at the use of cobalt in the agricultural and forestry sectors.
The Environmental Investigation Agency and PremiCongo published in March 2026 a report titled "Toxic Transition: How the World's Largest Cobalt Producer Has Allegedly Poisoned Communities for Years."
A Chinese company, CMOC Group Ltd., controls two of the world's largest copper-cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thousands of people live within a few kilometers of the operations and its massive processing plant. Local communities and civil society groups have sounded the alarm about severe health issues. Since 2023, doctors and nurses near the mines have treated a growing list of patients.
Billionaires Africa posted on 4 March 2026 an article titled "Oskar Lewnowski: The Man Betting $9 Billion on Congo's Cobalt to Break China's Grip on America's Mineral Future" by Mfonobong Nsehe.
Orion Critical Minerals Consortium (CMC), founded by American financier Oskar Lewnowski, and Glencore announced in February 2026 that they had entered a non-binding memorandum of understanding for Orion CMC to acquire a 40 percent stake in Glencore's DRC assets, Mutanda Mining and Kamoto Copper Company, at a combined enterprise value of about $9 billion.
Lewnowski is pursuing a financial deal that is a direct counter to Beijing's decade-long strategy of locking up critical mineral supply chains before Western governments understood what was at stake. This potential investment would help ensure a reliable source of critical minerals for the United States and its partners. The deal remains subject to due diligence and regulatory approvals.
Skillings Mining Review published on 3 March 2026 an article titled "The Indaba 2026 Legacy: Inside the New African Critical Minerals Framework" by Charles Pitts.
The most recent Cape Town conference on mining (Indaba 2026) demonstrated that three major African sources of critical minerals (DRC, Zambia, and South Africa) acted in a coordinated way to ensure that its raw mineral wealth is not just exported but more of it is refined in Africa for value added benefits. For example, the DRC produces about 70 percent of the world's cobalt but now refines less than 10 percent of it. The DRC intends to change that ratio.
The West's Lobito Corridor project for Angola, Zambia, and the DRC fits this new African narrative reasonably well, China's focus on importing raw material not so much.
The South African Institute of International Affairs published in January 2026 a paper titled "Examining Integrated Chinese Mining-Energy Investments in Zimbabwe" by Yaseen Tayob and Adrian Joseph.
The paper assesses Chinese investments in Zimbabwe's mining and energy sectors and shows that they provide identifiable economic value to the Zimbabwean economy, particularly in the country's lithium mining sector.
Modern Diplomacy published on 9 February 2026 an article titled "U.S. Tests China's Grip on African Minerals Ahead of Cape Town Indaba" by Sana Khan.
The US strategy for accessing African critical minerals relies on trading structures that steer African mineral output into US-aligned supply chains still dominated by Chinese refiners. Washington is seeking to influence mineral flows without replicating China's capital intensive, asset-heavy model. This approach reduces political and operational exposure but also limits control.
