The Democratic Republic of Congo is looking to strengthen their alliance with China as the two countries are renegotiating mining contracts for the DRC’s mineral reserves.
The President of the DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, is currently on his first State visit to China and is the most recent in a string of diplomatic interactions between Beijing and African leaders.
Mr Tshisekedi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping announced that they were upgrading the bilateral relationship from a win-win strategic cooperative partnership to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, in a statement released by the Chinese foreign ministry.
China is a major investor in the DRC, where the Asian power dominates the lucrative mining industry with companies such as Sicomines.
Mr. Tshisekedi has openly committed to renegotiate Congolese mining contracts, particularly the one signed by his predecessor, Joseph Kabila (2001-2019), with China in 2008, in order to achieve better terms for his country.
He was greeted by a line of honour and jubilant children between meetings with Mr Xi and Premier Li Qiang.
Mr Li told Mr Tshisekedi that he believed China-DRC relations will surely achieve greater development and benefit both peoples.
The large central African country is a major exporter of copper, uranium and cobalt a key ingredient in batteries for consumer goods.
A senior DRC official, Erik Nyindu Kibambe, told reporters in Beijing that the mining renegotiation talks were going “wonderfully”, with the Congolese side hoping for an agreement by the end of this year.
He said they were aiming for a state-to-state agreement, rather than agreements between the DRC and individual mining companies.
Félix Tshisekedi is the latest in a series of African leaders to visit China in recent weeks, following delegations from Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Gabon.
The African continent is at the center of a war for influence between the world’s main powers, China, Russia, and the United States, all of which have dispatched top diplomats to the region for competing diplomatic offensives this year.
