KISANFU, Congo Democratic Republic — Bulldozers are carving out a cavernous new canyon just up a red dirt road, across an expanse of tall, dew-soaked weeds, that is essential to the world’s urgent struggle against global warming.
An American corporation ruled over a huge swath of undeveloped territory for more than a decade. Now it has been purchased by a Chinese mining corporation, which is racing to recover the buried treasure: millions of tons of cobalt.
Kyahile Mangi, 73, has been here long enough to see what is ahead. The walls of mud-brick homes will crack once the blasting begins. Chemicals will seep into the river, where women wash their clothes and do their dishes while fearing hippo attacks. A mine manager will soon make the announcement that everyone must relocate.
“We know our earth is wealthy,” said Mr. Mangi, a village head who also knows that the mine’s income will be shared sparingly.
Kisanfu, a forested area in the southeast Democratic Republic of Congo, contains one of the world’s largest and purest undeveloped cobalt sources.
Miners have historically been interested in the gray metal, which is often recovered from copper resources. However, demand is expected to skyrocket due to its use in electric-car batteries, which allows them to run for extended periods of time without recharging.
Outsiders are following a familiar colonial-era pattern when it comes to exploring — and exploiting — the natural resources of this impoverished Central African country. The US sought uranium in Congo to help develop the bombs that were detonated on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then spent decades and billions of dollars trying to maintain its mining holdings here.
With Congo producing more than two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, the country is once again taking center stage as major manufacturers pledge to combat
climate change by switching from gasoline-powered to battery-powered vehicles. The new autos rely on a variety of minerals and metals that aren’t always readily available in the United States or the oil-rich Middle East, where the previous energy period was supported.
The search for Congo’s cobalt, however, has revealed how the clean energy revolution, which was supposed to save the planet from dangerously rising temperatures in an age of enlightened self-interest, has become mired in a familiar cycle of exploitation, greed, and gamesmanship, according to a New York Times investigation.
The New York Times despatched writers to three continents to cover the race for cobalt, a relatively unknown raw mineral that, along with lithium, nickel, and graphite, has become extremely valuable in a world striving to phase out fossil fuels.
More than 100 interviews and tens of thousands of pages of papers indicate that the hunt for cobalt has sparked a power struggle in Congo, a repository of these increasingly valuable resources, and attracted foreigners looking to dominate the next epoch in global energy.
A rivalry between China and the United States, in particular, could have far-reaching consequences for the shared goal of protecting the environment. At least in Congo, China is currently winning that fight, with both the Obama and Trump administrations standing by as a Chinese-backed business that purchased two of the country’s main cobalt resources during the last five years.
China and the United States have entered a new “Great Game” as the significance of those purchases becomes obvious. President Biden acknowledged the United States has lost ground during a visit to a General Motors factory in Detroit this week to promote electric automobiles. “As a nation, we were at risk of losing our competitive advantage, and China and the rest of the world are catching up,” he said. “Well, we’re about to change that in a huge, big way,” says the narrator.
China Molybdenum, which has owned the Kisanfu site since late last year, purchased it from Freeport-McMoRan, an American mining conglomerate with a tumultuous past that was once one of Congo’s largest cobalt producers — but has since exited the nation entirely.
The Biden administration cautioned in June, barely six months after the deal, that China could use its expanding cobalt dominance to stifle the American push toward electric vehicles by forcing out American manufacturers. According to a national security official familiar with the situation, the US is lobbying for access to cobalt supplies from allies, including Australia and Canada.
Cobalt battery components are purchased by American manufacturers such as Ford, GM, and Tesla from suppliers who rely on Chinese-owned mines in Congo. A Tesla vehicle with a greater range takes around 10 pounds of cobalt, which is more than 400 times the amount in a cellphone.
Tensions over minerals and metals are already causing havoc in the electric vehicle business.
In July, deadly rioting near a port in South Africa, where much of Congo’s cobalt is shipped to China and other countries, triggered a global spike in cobalt prices, which only deteriorated during the remainder of the year.
Last month, the mining industry’s top forecaster said that growing raw material costs will drive up battery costs for the first time in years, jeopardizing automakers’ hopes to attract customers with low-cost electric vehicles.
The mineral supply bottleneck, according to Ford CEO Jim Farley, must be addressed.
“We have to tackle these problems,” he stated at a September event, “and we don’t have a lot of time.”
Automakers such as Ford are investing billions of dollars in the United States to establish their own battery operations, and are hurrying to discover lithium iron phosphate replacements or turn to recycle to reduce the demand for newly mined cobalt. As a result, “we do not regard cobalt as a restricting problem,” according to a Ford spokesman.
Chinese enterprises’ increased mining and processing of cobalt have aided in meeting rising demand while also advancing the fight against climate change. However, as more automakers globally develop electric vehicles, the International Energy Agency predicts a cobalt scarcity by 2030, based on an examination of existing and planned mines. According to some analysts, a scarcity might occur as early as 2025.
The acquisitions in Congo have followed a systematic plan, announced with great fanfare by Beijing in 2015, to dominate the world’s developing clean energy economy, according to documents filed with Chinese regulatory officials reviewed by The Times.
According to a data study by The Times and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Chinese businesses controlled or financed 15 of Congo’s 19 cobalt-producing mines as of last year. Glencore, a Swiss corporation that operates two of the world’s major cobalt mines, is the most viable alternative to Chinese operators.
These Chinese businesses have gotten at least $12 billion in loans and other finance from government-backed institutions, with billions more on the way. According to records reviewed by The Times, the five largest Chinese mining businesses in Congo had $124 billion in lines of credit from state-backed banks, despite the fact that one of them, China Molybdenum, identified itself as a “pure business entity” that traded on two stock exchanges.
China’s goal is to have complete control over the entire supply chain, from the metals in the ground to the batteries themselves, regardless of where the vehicles are manufactured. The strategy is reminiscent of Henry Ford’s early 20th-century investments in Amazonian rubber plantations as the auto industry transitioned to mass production.
China Molybdenum has made two large acquisitions in recent years, including the forested mine site at Kisanfu. The first was in 2016 when it acquired Tenke Fungurume, a mine that generates twice as much cobalt as any other country on the planet. According to financial documents, Chinese state-owned banks funded at least $1.59 billion of the $2.65 billion Tenke Fungurume price tag.
In 2016, as the Chinese focused more on green energy, Donald J. Trump, the soon-to-be US president, was praising the fossil fuel sector, campaigning in West Virginia with a hard hat and shovel, falsely promising coal miners that “you’re going to be working your asses off!” Mr. Trump would pull back restrictions for American automakers aimed at speeding up the switch to electric vehicles once he takes office, giving the Chinese an even wider road.
“What occurred here is quite terrible,” said Nicole Widdersheim, who worked on Africa matters for the National Security Council during Trump’s presidency. “It’s all so dumb.”
The international rush for Congo’s cobalt has attracted a cast of opportunists, luminaries, and mysterious figures seeking to profit. It also drew in a Chinese-based private equity firm founded by Hunter Biden, which was later probed during the 2020 presidential race.
According to documents obtained by The Increasing York Times and interviews with current and former senior US officials, Chinese corporations are facing new headwinds from Congo’s government.
Congolese officials are conducting a thorough assessment of prior mining contracts with financial assistance from the United States as part of a larger anti-corruption operation. They’re looking into whether businesses are meeting their contractual responsibilities, such as China’s promise to build billions of dollars worth of new roads, bridges, power plants, and other infrastructure in 2008.
Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, appointed a panel in August to look into charges that China Molybdenum, the firm that bought the two Freeport-McMoRan assets, defrauded the Congolese government of billions of dollars in royalties. The corporation is in danger of being kicked out of Congo.
Trespassers from neighboring villages scavenging for cobalt have long been a source of concern at the Tenke Fungurume mine. Witnesses and local officials told The Times that after China Molybdenum requested assistance from the government, the Congolese military shot and killed a trespasser inside the mine’s gates, as well as a second person who was slain as riots broke out in protest.
Separately, at least a dozen mine employees or contractors told The New York Times that Chinese ownership had resulted in a significant drop in safety and an increase in injuries, many of which went unnoticed by management. Workers were allegedly assaulted after raising concerns, and bribes were offered to cover up mishaps, according to two Congolese safety authorities.
“In terms of safety, everything are coming apart,” said Alfred Kiloko Makeba, who left last year after a decade as a mine safety supervisor.
Vincent Zhou, a representative for China Molybdenum, denied that the business had defrauded the Congolese government or reduced safety requirements, claiming that the contrary was true, and questioned whether there was a coordinated campaign to damage the company.
Mr. Zhou noted in a letter statement to The Times that there is a Chinese idiom that goes something like this: “Where there is a resolve to convict, proof will follow.” “I have a nagging suspicion that we are caught up in the game of bigger powers.”
Connection to the White House
African governments have been turning to China for years for assistance in building infrastructure through loans or exchanges involving their natural resources – arrangements that observers say benefit the Chinese far more than the Africans.
When Joseph Kabila traveled into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in 2005, he wrote out a blueprint for those deals, which are now prevalent across the continent.
After his father’s assassination, Mr. Kabila, then 33, became the new president of Congo, another terrible milepost on the poverty-stricken country’s route of bloodshed and political turmoil.
Mr. Kabila was no stranger to China, having gotten military training there in the late 1990s. The purpose of this visit was to seek President Hu Jintao’s assistance in reviving Congo’s economy.
The United States, which had long given Congo economic and military aid, was engrossed with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and had lost interest in the country. Many international banks and Western investors were scared away by Congo’s dismal track record on corruption and human rights.
Mr. Kabila had a large wish list: he wanted new roads, schools, and hospitals as part of a revitalization plan that he hoped would endear him back home to a country that had been fatigued and demoralized by years of conflict and corruption.
In return, he was willing to give up his country’s tremendous mineral wealth, which was unrivaled in most of the world.
According to André Kapanga, a former aide to Mr. Kabila who revealed details of the meeting for the first time in an article with The Times, the two presidents discussed an agreement that would shift Central Africa’s political balance in the majestic hall on Tiananmen Square.
Many people in China’s western provinces, according to Mr. Hu, live in abject poverty. He required minerals and metals to build up new enterprises, and developing the area was a cornerstone of his domestic policy. Mr. Kabila assured him that Congo was willing to assist.
China has already purchased raw materials from Congo’s neighbor, Angola, in exchange for oil.
But this potential deal with Mr. Kabila was more ambitious than any other, and it would be completed in a diplomatic drama at the riverbank Palais de la Nation in Kinshasa.
The scene was staged at Mr. Kabila’s inauguration in 2006 after he had won the presidency in a legal election. Elaine Chao, the then-secretary of labor, headed a team from the Bush administration.
Mr. Kabila liked motorcycles, so when she greeted him at lunch, she gave him a Harley-Davidson souvenir. According to Laura Genero, an assistant deputy labor secretary who was on the trip, Ms. Chao expected that would be the end of their encounter, but others of her delegation persuaded her to request a private meeting. Mr. Kabila, to her astonishment, agreed to meet the next day.
Ms. Chao was so unprepared for the event that she had to borrow Ms. Genero’s beige pantsuit. She had only brought one work attire with her.
The US delegation congratulated Mr. Kabila on his democratic triumph and listened as he discussed his desire to expand energy available throughout the country. The discussion, according to one of his aides, was primarily small talk.
According to Mr. Kapanga, who was informed on both the US and Chinese negotiations, a comparable meeting between the new president and Chinese officials went differently.
The Chinese took advantage of the opportunity to start formal talks with Mr. Kabila, which would result in a $6 billion deal in which China would pay for roads, hospitals, rail lines, schools, and power-generation projects in exchange for access to 10 million tons of copper and over 600,000 tons of cobalt.
While Mr. Kabila hailed the accord as “the deal of the century,” the international financial sector was more cautious, concerned that Congo was taking on too much debt.
Officials from the United States were astounded by the deal’s historic scope. Previous Chinese investment in Congo had been “an informal, somewhat chaotic collection of Chinese firms” that did not pose a substantial danger to US interests, according to secret cables made public by WikiLeaks.
According to a cable sent in 2008 from the US embassy in Kinshasa to members of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secretary of State, and other officials, “2,000 miles of roadway linking Orientale and Katanga provinces, 31 hospitals, 145 health centers, two large universities, and 5,000 government housing units are pledged.”
“And that’s not all,” said the cable.
Getting a Phoenix to Come to You
By 2015, China’s involvement in Congo had manifested itself in a slew of infrastructure projects: soccer stadiums rose from the ashes, highways were expanded, and water treatment facilities were under construction.
However, not all of the company’s achievements in cornering the cobalt market can be quantified in dollars and cents. Wang Tongqing, the Chinese ambassador at the time, launched an American-style diplomatic offensive.
Mr. Wang threw out the first pitch at a Chinese corporate basketball tournament attended by Congolese fans that year.
He granted Congolese youngsters scholarships to study in China and was present when a Chinese organization supplied airline tickets for a Congolese choir to tour his nation. He pledged $1 million for Ebola relief in Congo at one time.
Mr. Wang’s activities coincided with the launch of China’s “Made in China 2025” policy in 2015, which outlined the country’s aim to become a “manufacturing giant” in ten areas, including batteries for electric vehicles.
A tidal surge of government-backed finance flooded into Chinese enterprises in Congo and elsewhere almost immediately. Deals were rapidly made.
The state-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group announced that it would collaborate with Congo’s national mining corporation, Gécamines, to develop the Deziwa site, which was at the time one of the country’s largest copper and cobalt concessions.
In 2017, Zijin Mining, a Chinese state-owned business with the tagline “Harmony Begets Wealth,” obtained about $700 million through the sale of private shares to fund the development of its Kolwezi mine.
Although public pronouncements about the agreements hinted at China’s goal, the history and scope of the initiative had not before been published.
The five largest Chinese companies in Congo were awarded at least $124 billion in credit lines for their global activities, according to corporate papers studied by The New York Times, including annual reports and bond prospectuses. All of the enterprises are state-owned or have significant minority shares in the Chinese government at various levels.
Mr. Kapanga, a former adviser to Mr. Kabila, said, “Unlike the United States, the Chinese government is always behind Chinese businessmen in Africa, and more especially in D.R.C.”
The biggest deal came in April 2016, when China Molybdenum made a $2.65 billion offer to buy Tenke Fungurume, an American-owned mine atop one of the world’s largest cobalt reserves. The business’s major shareholders include a government-owned company and a reclusive millionaire. Read the original article here.
There was one snag, though. Freeport-McMoRan had a Canadian partner with the option to buy its stake first. China Molybdenum’s option was to have a Shanghai-based private equity firm buy out the partner, although even that required government funding.
According to business papers, none of the $1.14 billion collected to buy the partner’s portion came from private investors. According to the documents, the money originated from Chinese state-controlled enterprises, including bank loans guaranteed by China Molybdenum and funds brought in through opaque shell firms managed by government-owned banks.
The board of directors of the private equity firm, known as BHR, was dominated by Chinese members, but three Americans were also on the board: Devon Archer, a businessman who was later convicted of defrauding the Oglala Sioux tribe in a case that is still pending in the courts, and James Bulger, son of the former president of the Massachusetts State Senate.
Hunter Biden, whose father was a vice president at the time, was another.
It’s unclear whether Mr. Biden, who helped start the company in 2013, was involved in the transaction. Requests for a response from Mr. Biden were not returned. No American had played a part, according to a former member of the BHR board who was not permitted to speak about internal business affairs, and the fees produced for the job had not been handed to Mr. Biden or others. On Friday, a spokesman for President Biden said he had not been informed about his son’s involvement in the transaction.
The top executive who negotiated the sale for Freeport-Canadian McMoRan’s partner, Lundin Mining, has no idea how or why the company got engaged.
“Were they a business partner, a financial adviser, or a financier?” “I’m not sure,” stated Paul Conibear, Lundin’s CEO at the time.
In May 2017, Kinshasa hosted an elaborate gala under white tents to commemorate China’s new ownership. Mr. Wang was present, as were Chinese officials who assisted in the purchase’s financing, as well as a slew of Chinese government-affiliated bankers hoping to close more mining transactions.
Within a few years, they’d assist China Molybdenum in acquiring Kisanfu, the world’s largest undeveloped cobalt reserve, from the same American mining behemoth. Together, the deals signaled a change of guard in Congo, with the US abandoning its mining interests — a situation that now concerns President Biden, as he and his advisors recognize the magnitude of China’s clean energy domination.
Mr. Wang told the crowd, “The DRC has a wide territory, rich natural resources, and great business potential.” “‘Build a beautiful nest to attract the phoenix,’ says a Chinese saying.”
‘Security Is Only on Paper’
At first, the modifications at Tenke Fungurume — a 24-hour operation with almost 7,000 employees spread across a terrain the size of Los Angeles defined by deep craters and dust churned up by earth-moving machines — appeared to be minor.
Employees who had been compelled to wear steel-toed boots and safety goggles were taken aback when the new Chinese supervisors arrived in shorts and sneakers.
“We were like, ‘Oh, this is not conceivable,'” said Pierrot Kitobo Sambisaya, a metallurgist at the mine for a decade until 2019 and used to a harsher working atmosphere.
Work anniversaries passed without notice soon after. Holiday celebrations with tours of the mine for workers’ families were no longer held. Hundreds of Congolese janitors and drivers were replaced with Chinese workers.
That was only the beginning. According to interviews with workers in the neighboring villages, current and past safety inspectors, Congolese government officials, and mining executives, employees were afraid that the mine was growing more unsafe.
Workers entered acid tanks to do repairs without first evaluating the air quality. Others undertook dangerous welding work without sufficient supervision or operated bulldozers and other heavy equipment without proper training.
A worker sat in his truck as it was being hauled last year, and it flipped. According to a China Molybdenum annual operations report, the worker attempted to jump to safety, but the truck crashed on him and crushed him to death.
According to Alfred Kiloko Makeba, the experienced safety supervisor, and ten other current and former employees, managers, and contractors, all of this was a stark contrast to the company’s American predecessor, which had “zero tolerance” for risky actions and safety violations.
Freeport-McMoRan, the company that built the mine, had learned some hard lessons years previously at its copper and gold mine in Indonesia, where it faced international outrage for dumping poisonous mine waste into a river in the jungle and violent clashes over its operations.
In Congo, the firm faced its own difficulties as it built Tenke Fungurume, displacing around 1,500 people in an unplanned manner. However, once the mine opened, it earned an uncommon degree of respect from both local officials and US diplomats for its commitment to worker safety.
Worker safety is an issue at other Congolese industrial mines, but safety authorities say that at Freeport, personnel who broke the regulations were swiftly penalized or fired. During the eight years that Freeport-McMoRan controlled the mine, there was just one reported death among workers, according to records checked by The New York Times, despite the fact that it frequently publicized reports of near-fatal accidents as cautionary guidelines.
Workers and managers alleged that when safety inspectors uncovered problems after China Molybdenum took over, they were sometimes encouraged to ignore them or offered payments to do so. When they did try to enforce the restrictions, they were occasionally met with violence.
One safety officer claimed he was shoved to the ground by a worker who he had warned about using welding equipment inappropriately. The man twisted his arm, breaking his cellphone and a work-issued camera in the process.
Employees have reported clashes and safety issues to Gécamines, the Congolese agency that is a minority partner in the mine, according to a Gécamines executive. Safety concerns are now being considered as part of a larger evaluation of China Molybdenum’s operations.
Mr. Zhou, a spokesman for China Molybdenum, disputed that any inspectors were assaulted. He stated that the claims were most likely made up by former employees.
He said the mine had “a solid occupational health and safety system in place and continues to implement its zero tolerance regulations” in a statement to The New York Times. Indeed, he claimed, “internal statistics” presented in a corporate report this year indicated a decrease in worker injuries since the company took over.
Employees who claimed they were constantly advised not to disclose injuries suspected the data was being manipulated as part of a cover-up campaign.
Mr. Makeba’s suspicions were crystallized for him one evening last year when he received an urgent phone call, which The Times was unable to independently authenticate and which China Molybdenum refuted. He claimed that a mining worker had fallen from a high perch after failing to wear the required safety harness.
Mr. Makeba raced to the scene and was taken aback to learn that the worker who had broken his leg had been brought to a private clinic rather than the mine’s.
Mr. Makeba said that the employee told him that his bosses had bribed him to keep quiet so that the incident would not be reported to management and appear on the company’s audited injury tally.
Mr. Makeba claims that when he contacted his own employer, he was advised to drop the subject.
Mr. Zhou dismissed Mr. Makeba’s claim, saying that “any sort of disclosure cover-up is against the norms and business values.”
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However, labor conditions have grown increasingly crucial to automakers sensitive to customer and shareholder expectations, according to Mr. Makeba and another safety manager still working at the mine. As a result, they claim, China Molybdenum has prevented them from reporting near-fatalities and has habitually neglected other injuries.
Mr. Makeba stated, “Safety is now merely on paper.”
Employee issues aren’t the only source of dissatisfaction at Tenke Fungurume.
Trespassers had been stealing bags of cobalt from Freeport-McMoRan. When hand-dug tunnels flooded or collapsed, some people died.
With China Molybdenum in charge, the conflict deteriorated significantly.
When faced with thousands of newly arrived trespassers, the firm requested that the government send soldiers to help handle the issue, according to one executive who worked at the mine at the time.
The military arrived and began patrolling Tenke Fungurume and other nearby mines, bulldozing trespassers’ depots where they were selling cobalt chunks to traders.
The troops stayed for months, and the situation finally escalated into a tragic catastrophe. According to an employee who witnessed the confrontation, a soldier at Tenke Fungurume opened fire, killing an unlicensed digger.
When friends carrying the man’s body arrived in his hometown, riots ensued. According to three local officials and the mining employee, a demonstrator was killed in the melee.
According to them, China Molybdenum paid for the graves.
This year, security guards recruited from a business created by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL turned private security consultant, were stationed outside the mine with AK-47s.
Even as the theft crackdown was in full swing, the mine’s new managers were seeking for ways to decrease expenses while improving production.
China Molybdenum said its “cost and efficiency” programs have saved the company more than $130 million every year. The corporation advertises on its website that “new management revitalizes the business by bringing ‘Chinese efficiency and Chinese characteristics.'”
The Rush to Expand
China’s output of molybdenum is steadily increasing. It bought Kisanfu from Freeport-McMoRan in December, paying $550 million for what is considered one of the world’s greatest undeveloped cobalt reserves. According to China Molybdenum, the ground beneath the location contains enough cobalt to power hundreds of millions of long-range Teslas.
Then, in August, China Molybdenum announced intentions to invest $2.5 billion at Tenke Fungurume over the following two years to increase production. The mine will be able to generate roughly 40,000 tons per year after the expansion is complete. The United States generated only 600 tons last year.
This drive to expand, on the other hand, has drew the ire of Congo’s senior government leaders, including President Tshisekedi.
Tenke Fungurume’s operators may owe Congo money dating back to when the American corporation owned the mine. When fresh deposits at Tenke Fungurume are confirmed, the owners must contact Gécamines, the Congolese agency, and pay $12 for each additional ton.
The claims have sparked a furious feud between Congolese officials and mine managers, with a spokeswoman for China Molybdenum calling the charges “unbelievable, incorrect estimates” based on an accounting blunder.
According to two Congolese mining executives involved in confidential meetings as well as a government official briefed on the talks, Gécamines executives have considered driving out the management at Tenke Fungurume or perhaps transferring the mine out of China Molybdenum’s hands.
Robert North, a geologist based in New Mexico who has worked on reserve estimates for Freeport and China Molybdenum at the mine, said both firms, as well as Gécamines, were aware of huge amounts of cobalt underground. China Molybdenum has been careful in announcing it, he said, until the business is certain it wants to invest in removing the deeper levels.
The claims are still being investigated by Mr. Tshisekedi’s panel, and the president recently presided over a tense six-hour meeting with top corporate executives.
Separately, the Congolese government is scrutinizing a number of mining contracts with financial help from the US to see if Congo has been shortchanged more broadly. Officials say that while many of the Chinese-funded infrastructure projects got off to a fast start, many have yet to be completed.
During a visit to the cobalt-mining region earlier this year, the president admitted that corrupt or incompetent Congolese government officials may bear some responsibility for deals that have left the country feeling shortchanged.
“Some of our countrymen messed up the mining contracts,” he explained. “I’m really hard on these investors who are only interested in enriching themselves.” They arrive with no money and depart with billions.”
Officials from the Chinese government maintain that the relationship is still on track and that the benefits to Congo are significant.
The two countries have a “longstanding friendship,” according to Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Bilateral practical cooperation has delivered fruitful win-win results and enjoys broad potential,” he said during a news conference in September.
Mr. Tshisekedi said in a Kinshasa interview that his focus was not on which foreign force would dominate mining in Congo, but rather on how his country might benefit from the clean energy revolution’s wealth.
“We have incredible renewable energy potential, whether it’s through key metals or rivers,” he remarked, referring to both mining and hydroelectric power. “Our objective is to see how we can put this incredible resource at the disposal of the world while ensuring that it serves Congolese and Africans first.”
