Discourse Check: How China Frames Its Involvement in DRC Mining

File image of a child and a woman breaking rocks extracted from a cobalt mine at a copper quarry and cobalt pit in the southeastern Congolese city of Lubumbashi. JUNIOR KANNAH / AFP

Western opposition to Chinese involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining sector is sharpening, with measures proposed to ban supplies of cobalt from Chinese companies.

This opposition partly reflects concerns about Chinese control of a strategic resource, but it is also presented as a strike against bad environmental and labor practices.

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by Cobus van Staden

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