The Dragon Meets the Leopard: Opportunities and Challenges in China-Democratic Republic of the Congo Relations

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One sentence perfectly summarizes how rich the soil of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is: the country has  an estimated US $ 24 trillion in untapped deposits of raw minerals, “which [once was] the combined GDP of Europe and the US.”

Yet, DRC remains one of the poorest countries in the world with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of $550 in 2020, 73% of its 105 million inhabitants (2021 estimates) living on less than $1.90 a day, making ⅙ of people living in extreme poverty in Subsaharan Africa a Congolese (DRC) as of 2018. Contrary to DRC, China has, over the last 40 years, shifted from a position of extreme poverty to becoming a powerful economy with an estimated $14.9 trillion (market exchange rates, IMF 2020 estimates) thanks to, among others, its opening to international trade (from the 1970s), resource-intensive manufacturing, exports, and low-paid labor. Along the process, China lifted more than 800 million of its 1.416 billion inhabitants, (2021 estimates) out of poverty,  and significantly  improved access to health, education, and other services over the same period. Today, China is even “soon slated to overtake the US for the top.”

But for China's growth to be sustained, the country needs an abundant source of natural resources, which the DRC can provide. On the other hand, for the DRC to take full advantage of its resource endowment, the country needs, in addition to peace, a strong industry and skilled local workers, which China is willing to help with in exchange for, among others, natural resources. It therefore did not take long for China  and DRC leaders to understand the importance of economic partnerships, especially at a time African countries are seeking alternatives to Western “aid”, and China is envisioning to position itself as a world superpower and challenge the United States unipolar world order. In this article, I discuss some of the socio-economic, political, and environmental challenges to China-DRC relations, as well as the opportunities that lie before both countries for a more sustainable and beneficial cooperation. 

Building a “Harmonious World”: China’s vision of a Multipolar World Order

In his statement at the United Nations (UN) 2005 Summit, Chinese President, Hu Jintao reiterated China’s commitment to building a “harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity.” But what did he mean? To what extent is it possible to build a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity when there are so many world power clashes over political and economic ideologies and aspirations? And how can we contextualize the DRC, and Africa at large, in this commitment of China for a commonly prosperous world? To have a start of an answer, one needs to look at the current international political order. By the end of WWII and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States emerged as the sole superpower.

This hegemonism is observable through the US world economic dominance (e.g. IMF, World Bank), cultural influence of the “American Dream”, and more importantly, its military power (e.g. North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and use of force for expansion across the world (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq, Korea wars, and military bases in, among others, Djibouti, Germany, Japan..etc).

More than ever, such a position is challenged by China’s rapid economic and military rise not only as a potential superpower, but also as a possible alternative to “the United States’ unilateral use of force.” But unlike President Deng’s foreign policy of taoguang yanghui (translating “keep a low profile and bide your time”) of the 1980s, China’s contemporary leadership sees China as a key player in world politics, if not the main player. It is in this context that President Jintao’s theory of a harmonious world can be understood in four main points: (1) multilateralism for common security; (2) win-win co-operation for common prosperity; (3) inclusiveness for the coexistence of all civilizations and finally (4) UN reform, to improve efficacy and maintain authority (Jintao 2005 pp. 04-09; Dellios 2009, pp. 09-11). In their aspirations  to build a multipolar world, China sees, more than ever, developing countries as key partners.. China’ s policy of non-intervention in other country’s domestic affairs has become very popular among developing countries seeking an alternative to Western aid which  often comes with tied conditions (e.g. obligation to democratize and respect human rights), This so-called South-South cooperation, as we will come to see in the case of Africa and more specifically the DRC, is primarily of economic and diplomatic nature, with both opportunities and non-negligible negative implications. 

Contextualizing Africa in China’s Ambitions

Africa-China relations are as old as Ancient Egypt.But what has strengthened the relations between Africa and China has been their mutual support in their struggle against imperialism: Africa against slavery and later against colonization, and China against Japanese and Western domination in the eighteenth to early twentieth  century. Such mutual support was expressed in the Bandung Conference of 1955  at which “29 “non-aligned” nations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East met to condemn colonialism, decry racism and express their reservations about the growing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.” In their struggles against imperialism, various  African states received support from China. For instance, in 1956, China’s premier, Zhou Enlai, “upheld Egypt’s claim to the Suez Canal as a crisis approached with the United Kingdom and France over control of the canal. China provided Egypt with a US$5 million loan, a first for China in Africa, and called on the United Kingdom and France to end their aggression” Equivocally, in 1971, it was thanks to “African countries 34 percent of UN votes to replace Taiwan” that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was able to get its seat at the United Nations. A comment attributed to Mao Zedong, then leader of the PRC, states that “It is our African brothers who have carried us into the UN.” But if the strong bonds of friendship between Africa and China were well established in the 1960s, they were primarily political.

Today, these links are above all economic and strategic. In the turn of the 1970s, China started shifting its international policy from politics to economic pragmatism, opening up its economy to international trade, developing its resource-intensive manufacturing, exports, and low-paid labor, and joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. China, on the one hand, understands that it is essential to maintain strong relations with Africa so that the continent can provide the natural resources it needs to keep the direction of its rapidly growing economy. On the other hand, African states see in China an alternative to  Western aids often tied to “the promotion of democratic principles and values” which China opposes “for it is a proponent of a home-grown political system.”China’s policy for cooperation with African states, be they collectively or individually, is primarily based on economic interests without interference in domestic affairs of the concerned country. In this new framework, African states and China initiated, in October 2000, the Forum on Africa-China Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Beijing Summit in 2006, two bilateral initiatives set to reinforce the Africa-China cooperation. 

History of China-DRC Relations: From the 1960s to Today

According to Claude Kabemba in China-Democratic Republic of Congo Relations: From a Beneficial to a Developmental Cooperation, it is incorrect “to see China as a newcomer and opportunist” in their relations with the DRC for they have “always maintained close and cordial diplomatic relations with the DRC well before the country’s independence.” Like in the case of the Suez canal crisis between Egypt and Western powers, China provided support to the DRC's struggle against Western imperialism. Such was the case with “the Simba rebellion of July 1963 led by Pierre Mulele” and later with “Laurent Kabila when he created a secessionist Marxist movement, the People’s Revolutionary Party (PRP) in 1967” whom China provided with military support through “an intensive training sabotage, guerrilla warfare and political subversion.”

Following DRC’s independence in 1960, the Kinshasa-Beijing relations kept growing and diversifying. In education, agriculture, healthcare, and diplomacy, China did, among others, “invested in agriculture focusing on rice in the Bumba region of Equateur Province”, built DRC’s national assembly and stadium of 80,000 seats, provided school books and provided  scholarships to Congolese students and civil servants for training in China, sent Chinese doctors to the DRC and built a Chinese run hospital. However, due to the political instability, such as during the fall of Mobutu in the 1990s, the relationship between China and DRC declined for a short period, but resumed in 1997 as Laurent Desire Kabila took power. In 2007, China and DRC signed the Sicomines deal, “the most important Chinese investment project in Africa to date.”As we will come to see in a later section of this article, due its astronomical amount (estimated to a $9 billion in gain for the DRC), the secrecy and controversy surrounding it, this deal has raised the concern of local leaders, the Congolese population, and international observers and organizations. 

The Democratic Republic of Congo: A Paradox of Plenty?

Looking at the Democratic Republic of Congo’s unmatched natural resources endowment, it would be logical for one to expect the country to be among the most developed countries in the world, if not the most developed. But this thinking is too much a simplification of the context in which DRC is, and even an undermining of the country’s history. So why this paradox? One can first start by looking into DRC’s history with slavery and Belgian colonization. During the atlantic slave trade, an estimate of 5.7 million slaves were taken from West Central Africa and St. Helena, the region of today’s Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo. With the abolition of Slavery, the later to be DRC will be turned into the Congo Free State, a privately owned property by Leopold II, king of the Belgians.

While it is impossible to exactly measure how many Congolese people were killed under the yoke and atrocities of Leopold II,  “demographers estimate that between 1880 and 1920 the population of the Congo may have been slashed by up to 50 percent, from perhaps 20 million people at the beginning of that period to an estimated 10 million at the end.”While slavery and Leopold II’s genocide in the Congo have enormously contributed to impoverishing DRC,  after 61 years of independence, these two factors alone cannot account for why DRC is still so poor, nor should these two factors be undermined. Today, one needs to look at DRC as “a failed state”, to use the words of Claude Kabemba. The incessant wars since independence, mainly for the control of natural resources, and the endemic corruption of the elites, make DRC “too weak to maintain cohesive and sustain important trade or political relations.” Therefore, not only is this situation a threat to China’s interests in DRC, but “it also opens an opportunity for China to exploit these weaknesses for its benefit.” It therefore appears that, to get out of this vicious circle, DRC  needs not only stability but also leaders at the central and local levels who put the people’s interests first. But while it is easy to write these words, implementing such a solution is almost an impossible act, when there is such a large pool of actors with different interests and aspirations: governments, multinational corporations, and rebel groups.  

Opportunities and Challenges in China-DRC Relations

The China-DRC relations, like any other, have their ups and downs, supporters and opponents, winners and losers. But having challenges does not necessarily mean the partners are pure evils nor that they are angels. Speaking about these challenges and highlighting the opportunities play an important role in improving the relationship between the involved parties. In this section, I discuss some of the non-exhaustive challenges and opportunities in China-DRC cooperation through the political, economic, environmental, and social-cultural lenses. 

Political and Socio-Cultural: Opportunities and Challenges. 

In the 1960s, China’s relations with Africa were mainly political. While there has been a significant shift towards economic pragmatism in the relations from the late 1970s, Beijing has understood, very early, that a strong diplomatic apparatus  is non-negligeable in their aspirations to become an economic superpower and a clear alternative to the United States  hegemony. More than anywhere else, due to too many international players involved in the exploitation of natural resources, diplomacy is important in the DRC.  For Bruno Hellendorff in his paper China and DRC: Africa’s Next Top Models?, with their access to DRC’s huge natural resources, not only China may secure “the continuous growth of its economy” but so does its leaders, to an extent, “positively impact on the domestic legitimacy of the CCP” (Chinese Communist Party), for “economic growth and political stability are deeply interconnected.”Similarly, China's “win-win” principle often calls for the creation of joint ventures between the host African country’s companies and China’s new corporations.

With such a strategy, China allows its new corporations to gain experience  which makes them more competitive for the global market “hence contributing to the economic development of the nation and the strengthening of the Party’s legitimacy.” In their desire to make a reality their “One China” policy, Beijing sees in DRC, Africa, and their south-south cooperation as a non-negligeable support at the United Nations. For Kinshasa, not only does the Middle Kingdom provide an alternative to Western aid through their non-interference policy approach, so are they  “a valuable friend in the international arena.” Like during DRC’s struggle for independence, today, China is not only financially supporting DRC but they also are“ active in the MONUSCO (United Nations peacekeeping mission in DRC)...[and]... training members of the national forces (the FARDC).”

As such,  China is playing a valuable role in building stability in the DRC, but as we will see there is a lot of room for improvement from the Chinese government. Finally, China’s economic cooperation with DRC is primarily “barter-based”, that is often a cashless transaction which, for Hellendorff, makes money “less likely to be siphoned off in a country where corruption is ubiquitous: as expressed by a Congolese popular saying, “you cannot put a highway in a bank account”.” In other words, most of the projects China is involved in the DRC are mainly infrastructure projects which are often built by Chinese companies, hence reducing the exchange of cash between the Chinese and Congolese parties. 

China’s non-intervention policy, while being a strength and attractive to many African leaders, is also a political challenge for China, a sort of “double-edged sword”for “while ingratiating itself with the Congolese elite, China is gradually ill considered by local communities” who see China as supportive of a regime that is corrupt and reluctant “to include civil society and labor unions representatives in its dealings with the DRC.”

From a local perspective, Beijing is becoming worried by the fact that “giving aid to an African country may not be perceived too well by a large portion of Chinese citizens still struggling with poverty.”But increasing transparency about these aids may also lead to local “discontent” towards the CCP. 

As for the DRC, the primary challenge is building a stable state. As previously stated, the incessant wars in the country, the lack of transparency in financial dealings, and the corruption of its leaders, among many other causes, makes it very difficult for the majority of Congolese to benefit from the full potential of its natural resources.In response to the galloping inequality in the country, the Congolese people have often turned their  “anger on Chinese citizens living in the DRC each time an opportunity presents” For instance, following the loss of TP Mazembe, a famous soccer team in DRC, against the Italian Club Inter Milan, “mobs in Lubumbashi angered by the calls made by a Japanese referee who they had mistaken for a Chinese referee, attacked Chinese businesses in the city.”Likewise, in January 2015, as the National Assembly attempted “to change an electoral provision which would have extended President Kabila stay in power beyond 2016” various protestors “targeted and destroyed Chinese businesses in Kinshasa neighborhoods. For Claude Kabemba, “the unconditional character of Beijing’s support for Kabila’s regime” is the primary reason for the violence against Chinese citizens.

Today, Kabila is no longer in power, and was replaced by one of his opponents. However, violence against Chinese citizens and the local population can also be explained by the insecurity in various regions of the country, which are mainly controlled by local militia. For instance, in November 2021, two Chinese citizens,  a Congolese woman and a Ugandan national, were found dead, and 10 more Chinese workers are reported missing, as they were attacked in an artisanal mine in Gold-rich Ituri in the northeast of the DRC. For Kabemba, the social and militia attacks are a result of a failure of the Congolese state and “an indication that China’s claim of having established relations as equals with DRC is more political than social and economic.”And as such, Beijing should step up, ignore its policy on non-intervention and help with “the reconstruction of the Congolese state to create conditions that support its own investment”, for it won’t be economically sustainable for both parties in the long term if the DRC remains dysfunctional.

The 2007 Sicomines Deal: A case Study of the Economic and Environmental Challenges in China-DRC Relations

In 2007, DRC’s then President, Joseph Kabila, signed a memorandum of understanding [that] outlined a deal worth over USD 9 billion” with China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC), the largest deal ever between an African country and the Middle Kingdom. As it’s been previously mentioned, China’s early relationship with the DRC had mainly been political and social. Prior to 2006,  China’s cooperation with the DRC consisted of the construction of monumental buildings such as the national stadium and the national assembly; the granting of scholarship to Congolese students; “the dispatching of Chinese medical teams to the DRC; and since 2003, the contribution of troops to the UN’s peacekeeping mission.” But following the 2006 presidential elections in the DRC, China became more involved in economic affairs with the country. Because there was “no Chinese involvement” in the official financial cost to organize the elections, the Sicomines deal of 2007 came as “a radical amplification of Sino–Congolese ties,” and suddenly led China at the top “on the Congolese government’s list of important external partners.”

This change in China-DRC relation dynamics can be attributed to the fact that “after the 2006 elections, traditional donors, [mainly Westerns], were reluctant to provide the investment necessary to meet President Kabila’s ‘five public works’ electoral promise—an ambitious programme covering infrastructure, employment, housing, water and electricity, and health and education.” But China was open to Kabila’s needs. With the Sicomines deal, it was agreed that “Congolese exploitation licenses 9681 and 9682, both located in the Kolwezi District, would be allocated to a Chinese consortium led by CREC” which, in return,  would ensure “the financing of USD 6.565 billion worth of infrastructure projects of a public goods nature such as roads and hospitals.”Likewise, the Chinese consortium agreed to “invest about USD 3 billion in the mining project itself” and the benefits from the exploitation of the mine would be used to reimburse their investment. However, after various negotiations and the interventions of the Paris Club, “a final agreement comprising an estimated USD 3 billion worth of infrastructure projects was reached.”Since then, the Sicomines deal has raised a lot of controversies and  issues of transparency, and has already forced the leaders from both parties to review it and also deny many things about it. First, the difficulty encountered by independent observers to access the specific conditions of the deal and “the omission from the 2008 agreement of all specific figures on the levels of investment involved” only raised the suspicion about the deal. Second, with its “sheer importance for the Kabila administration”, the deal became political “with multiple prominent opposition politicians hinting they would revisit, or even cancel, it if elected.”Finally, between 2012-2014, China Eximbank, “the financier of the venture” withdrew its finance from the deal which lead to “speculation”on the feasibility of the projects initiated, and whom the deal is benefiting the most. 

Conclusion

In light of what has been discussed, it appears that the China-DRC relationship appears to benefit both parties. However, its complexity should not be undermined. China’s ambition to build a new world order requires a lot of political maneuvers but also a significant source of natural resources to sustain a growing and powerful economy. The capacity of the DRC to provide these resources to China and China’s willingness to help the DRC exploit the full potential of its resources make both countries interconnected and interdependent. But this relationship is in no way a fairy tale for it confronts both parties with various political, economic, and social challenges. If not bilaterally addressed, these challenges may jeopardize not only China-DRC relations, but risk of disrupting China’s relations with Africa, especially with the new generations of Africans whose demands for better living conditions amplify daily.

While the Chinese government maintains a policy of non-intervention in the DRC’s internal affairs, and while this approach is in conformity with what all people aspire to, that is sovereignty, it is essential to note  that a more stable DRC would be more beneficial to both the Congolese and Chinese. As such, China, on the one hand, should attempt to go beyond the economic  spectrum in their relationship with the DRC by investing more into the social capital of the Congolese people. On the other hand,  the Congolese government, as a matter of responsibility, should be more transparent in their financial and economic dealings with external and internal stakeholders, for while it might not solve the political instability in all regions of the DRC due to the involvement of foreign forces, a better allocation of resources can significantly reduce one of the main causes of internal conflicts: poverty.

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