The Dark Side of Cobalt: How China Mines Congo's Treasure

The central African country, Congo, affects our daily lives like none other. While many may be surprised at this assertion initially, it is true. Cobalt, the most essential component to every rechargeable lithium-ion battery made today, is found and mined predominantly in the Congo.

Roughly 75 percent of the world's cobalt supply comes from the Congo. This essential element powers our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Billions of people around the world cannot conduct their daily lives without it. However, how many realize their comforts are thanks to the peasants and children who work daily in sub-human conditions in the Congo? Moreover, local miners operate in extremely hazardous and grinding conditions for a dollar or two a day.

As the world's biggest cobalt producer, Congo is also home to some of the world's most sought-after minerals. In fact, four-fifths of the world's cobalt is found and over 70% of its global production takes place in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

Furthermore, the Congo is the world's third-largest producer of copper and holds the world's seventh-largest copper reserves. Congo also holds significant deposits of lithium, tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold. 

As China locks down its supply chains, Japan, too, needs to expedite its efforts to secure stable supplies of these minerals. Meanwhile, child labor and toxic conditions in the Congo mines compound the political, operational, and ethical risks.

Human Rights Reports

Given these statistical figures, Kinshasa and its people should be enjoying an economic boom. It also comes on the heels of the country's constitutional promise that all Congolese people have the right to enjoy the nation's wealth. 

Nevertheless, the situation is quite the opposite. It turns out China owns most of the industrial mines in the DRC. And China is at the center of the horrifying working and living conditions as well as systematic evictions of residents who live on its vast concessions. 

Chinese copper and cobalt mining is "wrecking lives" in the DRC. This is the conclusion of a report by the Congo-based Initiative for Good Governance and Human Rights (IBGDH) and Amnesty International. The IBGDH reveals further that locals are being forcibly evicted. They are threatened into leaving their homes, or misled into consenting to derisory settlements. Far worse, there is no grievance mechanism, accountability, or access to justice. 

'Blood of the Congo'

The IBGDH is based in Kolwezi, one of the centers of mining expansion in Congo's southern province of Lualaba. Cobalt and copper mining have skyrocketed in that region in recent years.

The 2023 New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, is authored by Siddharth Kara (Macmillan Publishers). It brings out a searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining. 

Kara's investigation reveals gross human rights abuses behind Congo's cobalt mining operations. For example, it includes first-hand testimonies of the Congolese people, who are dying while mining cobalt. The mining practices are brutal. These are militia-controlled mining areas with supply chains of child-mined cobalt from toxic pits. Their destination is consumer-facing tech giants, and the reality of it all is disturbingly dark.

Congo's mining industry, dominated by China, has ravaged the country's landscape. The air and water around mines are also highly contaminated with toxic dust and effluents from the mining process. Millions of trees have been cut down. 

Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it, day in and day out, per Kara's account. 

Chinese Agreements Assure Control

Meanwhile, China covertly seeks to corner the mineral markets. Since 2009, Chinese companies have seized ownership of 15 of Congo's 19 primary industrial copper-cobalt mining concessions. Beijing dominates mining excavation on the ground and controls the supply chain all the way through to the battery level. About 70% to 80% of the refined cobalt market and as much as 60% of the lithium-ion battery market, are controlled by China.

The DRC and Chinese investors signed an agreement in the capital city, Kinshasa in March 2024. This agreement revises some terms of the Sicomines copper and cobalt joint venture. Under the revised agreement, Chinese companies pledged nearly $7 billion USD, up from $3 billion in the original agreement. These come in the form of infrastructure investment to ensure more benefits for its partners in the Congo. 

Public Health and Human Rights

According to testimonies given to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Beijing exploits child and forced labor in the Congo. It has been stated on record in these testimonies that child and forced labor taint the supply chain of cobalt. 

Time after time, cobalt mining has been linked to grave human rights abuses as well as environmental degradation. The US Department of Labor estimates that at least 25,000 children are working in Congo's cobalt mines.

Approximately 80% of the DRC's cobalt output is owned by Chinese companies and refined in China. It is then sold to lithium-ion battery makers around the world. 

China's policy is to inject investments and reap disproportionate economic benefits. It is strikingly mercantilist. However, when mercantilism comes at the cost of inhumane conditions and brazen human rights violations, it needs to be called out by the world community. The violator needs to be held accountable. 

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Author: Dr Monika Chansoria
Learn more about Dr Chansoria and follow her column "All Politics is Global" on JAPAN Forward, and on X (formerly Twitter). The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the views of any organization with which she is affiliated.