Mining & The Impact of Chinese Industrial Mineral Extraction Operations on Regional Security in Africa

Observing the dynamics of mining operations operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo can assist us in understanding the ramifications of PRC-run, mining operations throughout Africa.

Oil is not easy to access nor transport, it is difficult to sell on the black market in its unprocessed form, and finally when its weight and volume are considered, it is not a black market commodity that can easily be sold by small groups or independent operators - so other more transportable minerals are accessed or exploited.

Compared to oil, strategic minerals, precious metals, and gemstones are often easier to access, extract, transport and sell in a clandestine fashion. Even though the terms ‘rare earth minerals,’ ‘rare earth elements’ and ‘strategic minerals’ are often used synonymously, they have different meanings.

Dr. T.X. Montenegro - 2017 - https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3184/ - pp. 118.

I always attempt to cite the authors whose comments I utilize. No reason to steal thunder if you can make your own. Thus some required reference insertions. I can't do footnotes on LinkedIn, thus the parentheses and breaks with author reference.

This (below) is an external quote - not my work - see citation please.

“Strategic minerals are minerals containing rare elements that [specifically] can be used in defense, energy or industry. Because there are a limited number of companies and nations that control a majority of the supply, strategic minerals are often subject to unpredictable fluctuations in price and availability.” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Strategic Minerals: Will Future Supply Be Able to Meet Future Demand? 2016. https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016 /finalwebsite)

--- My Work Continued Below ---- ; )

In addition to oil, Beijing has also targeted 3TG (tantulum, tungsten, and gold) minerals and cobalt for extraction in Africa. Thus, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Copper Belt has seen a surge in the presence of Chinese mining companies since the early 2000’s.

Since mining operations are often in remote locales, the conditions, which are created by such operations often escape scrutiny. In many cases, the mines are run with little to no regard for the safety or health of the workers. If and when protective clothing is issued to mining employees, it is often sub-standard or has been used to the point that it is ineffectual.

Local workers are often forced to work long in dangerous conditions, underground in carelessly constructed and poorly ventilated passageways, or near smelters without protective clothing.

While the DRC’s enforcement of safety standards is weak, Chinese mining companies operate in what are considered a haphazard fashion even by local standards.

Another aspect of Chinese presence in the region is the facilitation and enablement of the local sex trade, and the spread of disease, through sex workers.

While some Chinese companies do provide nominal health care for Chinese employees, HIV testing is usually voluntary and the PRC-owned State Owned Enterprises will often let their personnel continue working as long as they are physically capable. Other Chinese-owned companies have no contingency policy for the transmission of communicable diseases between employees and locals, or vice versa. These conditions create unique transmission networks in which Chinese employees, African laborers, women, and girls from local communities are all potential biological vectors.

The utilization of child labor in extremely dangerous conditions is another problematic aspect of Chinese mining operations in the DRC. While the exploitation of children by Chinese mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo is difficult to document, a 2012 report compiled by a DRC-based United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) researcher revealed that in Katanga province alone it was estimated that 40,000 minors below the age of sixteen years old were working at extraction sites.

Considering the high degree to which Chinese-owned extractive industries are involved in the DRC, there is a dearth of information regarding pollution and environmental damage.

Mining operations contribute to deforestation, which in turn leads to erosion during the rainy season, which lasts for several months at a time. Trees need to be cleared for roads to transport the extracted material, and for easements leading into the mines. Secondly, large amounts of wood are needed for the smelters, and the food that mining-operation employees consume, is cooked over open fires.

Although child labor, safety and health issues, environmental damage and pollution are rather serious ramifications which result from PRC-owned extractive industries operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the greatest cause for concern is over the loss of human lives and creation of internally displaced persons which the rush for rare earths and minerals has facilitated in the country

As has been demonstrated throughout this dissertation, China’s presence has mixed effects on local populations, regional stability and conflict. Chinese extractive industry operations in such remote and under-developed areas generate their own particular set of dynamics. Labor pools drawn from indigenous workers contribute to a communal sense of self-determination while simultaneously injecting rural economies with cash. Yet, while mining operations have provided locals with a means to generate a greater income than what they customarily have made, the collateral effects of PRC-based industries in rural regions have also created negative ramifications for the populace.

If PRC-owned mining operations were well-managed, they could greatly benefit the indigenous populations in their regions of operation. However, at this point in time, the activities of Chinese extractive industries in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has no operative oversight mechanisms for industrial activity, are facilitating regional destabilization and conflict through health and safety issues, human rights abuses, child labor, prostitution, environmental damage and the funding of local militias via the sale of conflict minerals.

If regional destabilization and conflicts have historically been facilitated by the sale and transport of conflict minerals from local mining operations, the long-term prognosis looks bleak at best. Indigenous communities engaged in subsistence farming, fishing, hunting, and herding before the arrival of extractive industries. As in South Sudan, tens of thousands of acres in the Democratic Republic of Congo are now polluted and not suitable for agriculture, fishing or cattle grazing. Many areas are barren and subject to erosion, landslides and flooding during the rainy season due to deforestation.

The incidence of HIV and disease are higher in these regions; decent health care is not available, and the local communities are managing, or remain reasonably content, only because their local economies have been injected with cash from the wages of indigenous workers. However, issues like a global economic downturn, regional conflicts or local mineral supply depletion could see PRC-owned mining companies abandon their DRC-based operations in the future. This in turn most likely would create dynamics which would serve to perpetuate destabilization and conflict for decades to come.

In the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local populations have unknowingly traded their environment, their health and social values for an opportunity to reap the financial benefits of hosting Chinese mining operations within their region. Yet if for any reason those operations halt, those communities may find themselves destitute and battling other ethnic groups for quickly diminishing resources in environmentally damaged areas which once housed profitable extractive industries for the People’s Republic of China.

Furthermore, as the resources diminish, and mining-related incomes dry up for local populations, inter-ethnic tensions for agricultural, fishing, hunting and grazing rights will increase as locals return to their old means of subsistence living. Simultaneously, the demand for strategic minerals would increase proportionately to the diminishing supply, which in turn increases the funding to local militias, which control mineral-rich areas.

I will address conflict minerals in my next article. All of this information can be found within my 2017 Dissertation which has several title iterations. I myself prefer "The Impact of Chinese Industrial and Military Operations on Regional Security in Africa."

Dr. T.X. Montenegro - 2017

Here is the link to the 335 page dissertation: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3184/