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Lithium Prices Are Crashing, But Some Producers Are Doubling Down. Why?

There is a puzzling shift unfolding in the global lithium market. Prices have collapsed by over 70% from their 2022 highs to around $12,000 per tonne, and yet, against all market logic, some Chinese lithium giants are not retreating.  Instead, ...

Can Africa Move Up the Critical Mineral Value Chain? The Hard Truth Behind a Familiar Chorus

As China opens its doors wider to African exports, extending duty-free market access to all 53 diplomatic partners on the continent, the announcement was met with applause in ministerial corridors from Nairobi to Niamey. For many, the new policy represents another chance for Africa to claim ...

Critical Minerals Weekly: China’s Rare Earth Reset, Copper Overcapacity, and Zimbabwe’s Big Lithium Gamble

This is a free preview of the upcoming Critical Minerals Weekly Digest, part of the new CGSP Intelligence service launching in Summer 2025. After months of strategic restrictions, China has agreed to resume rare earth exports to the U.S. as ...

Chinese Lithium Investors in Zimbabwe Raise Critical Concerns for Policymakers

Since 2021, Zimbabwe’s lithium sector has attracted over $1.2 billion in investments, generating more than 5,000 jobs and positioning the country as a key player in the global lithium value chain. Chinese lithium mining giants, including Bikita Minerals, Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ), Sabi Star, and Kamativi Mining ...

Critical Mineral Resource Nationalism: What It Means for China and the Global South

Driven by the accelerating global energy transition, resource-rich countries are actively asserting greater control over their critical minerals—lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and rare earths—through a policy shift known as resource nationalism. While the framing of resource nationalism came from global north countries that dislike policies by ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

BRICS Announces Numerous New Initiatives

The BRICS group wrapped up its two-day leaders’ summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The summit’s final communique is a 16,000-word doorstop that covers numerous issues from economics to education.
The communique avoids any direct mention of the United States, and references to “unilateralism” and other coded criticism are also relatively scarce. Rather, the communique keeps the focus on the BRICS’ vision of the strengthening and reform of the global multilateral system ...

China’s Global Power Plant Investment is Shifting—But Will the Scale Follow?

By Diego Morro In a recent virtual meeting with world leaders on Climate and the Just Transition, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated that China will not slow its climate efforts or reduce support for international cooperation. This builds on his ...

What Trump’s Trade Policy Means for Africa, China, and the Future of Global Trade

When U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he wasted no time reviving his hardline trade stance. Among the 200 executive orders issued on his first day was the America First Trade Policy Memorandum, aimed at rebalancing global trade through sweeping import tariffs. ...

Zimbabwe’s Fight for Responsible Mining: Lessons for Africa & China

In recent years, the relationship between Chinese mining companies and local communities in many African countries has been very contentious over allegations of environmental damage, a lack of transparency, and tensions with local civil society groups.

Tracking Chinese Mineral Engagement Along the Belt and Road

China’s centrality in the global critical minerals sector is frequently bemoaned in Western capitals, but what’s less understood is how China got there. A new report by AidData, a research center at the College of William and Mary, came out this week and tracks mineral-related deals ...

Two Projects in Asia and Africa Highlight the New Realities of Chinese Development Finance

Two very interesting stories this week highlight the complexity of China's development finance initiatives in Asia and Africa. In Cambodia, people close to the massive $1.7 billion Funan Techo canal project hint that Chinese financing isn't as secure as Prime Minister Hun Manet made it sound when ...

China’s Future Role in Zimbabwe Power Plant Uncertain Amid Debt Crisis

Zimbabwe's business community is sounding the alarm over the prospect that one of the country's largest sources of electricity could be shuttered due to its failure to repay debts to Chinese creditors. Zimbabwe power authorities have reportedly fallen behind in servicing ...

China’s Xi Promises $50 Billion for Africa Over Next Three Years

By Sam Davies Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday pledged over $50 billion in financing for Africa over the next three years, promising to deepen cooperation in infrastructure and trade with the continent as he addressed Beijing's biggest summit since the ...
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