The Financial Times reports on China’s new controversial deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in which China will receive millions of tons of natural resources in exchange for building up the DRC’s infrastructure:
The deal, finalised last month, could prove one of Beijing ’s most ambitious forays into Africa yet. On paper it secures 10.62m tonnes of copper and 620,000 tonnes of cobalt for resource-hungry Chinese industries, but this is dependent on overcoming operational challenges that are as great as anywhere in Africa .
The deal comes at an uncertain cost to Congo , a country the size of western Europe that has been left, after decades of dictatorship, conflict and political turmoil, with less than 5,000km of tarred roads.
Like many of Beijing ’s big state-backed projects in Africa , this one pits a Chinese commercial model for engagement with the continent against the bureaucracy of western development assistance.
