The elephant in the room: offshore companies,liberalisation and extension of presidential power in DR Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, donors promoted rapid liberalisation and presidential elections in the aftermath of the war, and after two terms, President Kabila has not left office. This article engages with the question of how liberalisation and elections are connected, and how they are related to the extension of presidential power. It finds that the international market for minerals has shaped the domestic political economy but its nature has effectively been ignored in the formulation of donor policy; efforts at regulating trade have been concentrated on due diligence of origin in Congo but have not addressed the secrecy of international trade. Liberalisation has removed control of economic resources from Congo, provided returns for elite politicians and funded violence to control the disenfranchised population. The offshore companies are the elephant in the room; without acknowledging them, analysis of the liberalisation and its interaction with presidential tenure lacks assessment of the opportunities, interests and power that shaped the processes.     

废弃电子产品回收处理体系构建及实现路径

废弃电子产品富含许多珍贵的矿产资源和有机物，若处置不当，不仅不能有效回收利用这些资源，还会引发严重的环境问题。当前中国经济发展明显受资源、环境的瓶颈制约，若能充分回收利用废弃电子产品，无疑是缓解资源、环境问题的有效途径。该文对中国加快回收利用废弃电子产品的动因及废弃电子产品回收处理现状进行了分析，梳理了国外废弃电子产品回收处理体系建设的经验。在此基础上，该文尝试构建适于中国的废弃电子产品回收处理体系，并指出实现该体系的具体路径。     

蒙古矿产资源开发状况及中蒙资源合作前景

蒙古国矿产资源丰富,特别是近年来蒙古矿业投资环境得到了较大改善,开发潜力巨大。随着蒙古经济复苏、引资力度的进一步加大,蒙古吸引外资的能力正在增强。中蒙在利用中国资金、技术开发蒙古矿产资源方面拥有广阔的合作前景。     

National Security and Minerals

The term “national security” evolved from a nation possessing military might to predominantly having a secure national economy. Beteen those two aspects lie other factors that contribute to a nation＇s security. Minerals have been part of national se, curity strategy since the need for security was felt by nations. Especially military, economic, and environmental security has been factors that have driven mineral demand. On the other hand, mining and minerals have often been the cause of national security alerts. This paper would represent economic security as being reliant on minerals and will highlight economic security as the key driver that activates other security issues today. It will go on to discuss how minerals have also been affected by national security problems, such as the recent financial crisis. Furthermore, minerals have also been the cause for national security problems.     

BRICS corporates: In collaboration or in competition in Africa? Case studies from the South African mining industry

Framed by the 5th BRICS Summit in South Africa in March 2013, this analysis examines economic ‘South-South’ linkages on a company level. A qualitative case study focuses on a small number of private corporations operating in the South African mining and minerals sector. It looks at their reactions to increasingly competitive markets in the regions of Southern and West Africa, thus on their agency, defined as the ability to act in complex uncertainty. Findings present how the South African cases' engagements with strategically selected partner companies from the other BRICS economies can succeed. This contribution attempts to examine entrepreneurial rationale that can be taken as anecdotal evidence of a new ‘economic diplomacy’ at corporate level. The examples illustrate how agency enables certain adaptations of strategies for creating competitive synergies from collaboration with new actors from the other BRICS economies in Africa.     

The Race for Critical Minerals in an Era of Geopolitical Realignments

ABSTRACT

The decarbonisation of the global economy in response to the climate crisis and the fourth industrial revolution, featuring artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G networks (massively accelerated in response to the coronavirus pandemic), has triggered a race to secure uninterrupted access to critical raw minerals (CRMs) that are indispensable inputs for high-technology applications. Moreover, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which unites Eurasia and Africa and loops in South America into a seamless space of trade, infrastructure and digital connectivity, challenges the dominance of traditional industrial powers (the United States, the European Union and Japan) and requires critical minerals. Rare earths, lithium and cobalt – among the most critical of the CRMs – are found in high geographic concentration, creating hotspots of contention, especially in unstable parts of the world. As economic transformations accelerate, securing access to these materials will both impact and help shape geopolitics in the years to come.     

Resource powers? Minerals,energy and the rise of the BRICS

The rise of new economic powers has seen increasing attention focused on the international role of the BRICS countries. Importantly, a common feature uniting the BRICS is that they are all resource-rich, and many analysts (and some BRICS governments) have argued that natural resources are one of the key factors propelling the rise of the group. This article explores the BRICS’ emerging status as ‘resource powers’, examining how resource wealth underpins their economic development and foreign policy strategies, and thus contributes to their growing influence in international affairs. It is argued that through the use of nationalistic mining and energy policies, the BRICS governments have exploited natural resources for both domestic economic and international diplomatic objectives. However, there are several challenges and emerging risks facing the BRICS’ resource strategies, which mean that resource wealth is making a positive – though inherently limited – contribution to the growing international status of the group.     

South Africa's governance challenges: assessing the South Africa–China mineral case

The past 50 years of Africa's history have been blighted by a lack of good governance, which has hindered economic growth and political stability. The continent continues to maintain weak states which are clearly evident in the persistent corruption, unconstitutional behaviour, inefficiency, waste and unnecessary bureaucracy that remain widely practised. However, owing to emerging markets such as China and India that have promoted foreign direct investment in developing countries, a lot of speculation has arisen regarding the impact of the Forum for Cooperation between Africa and China on continental governance. The speculation tends to focus on whether the multilateral trade agreement between Africa and China will be mutually beneficial, or promote bad governance practices such as corruption. This paper argues that in order for any multilateral agreement to become economically beneficial in Africa, the continental elites must first implement good governance best practices. Furthermore, the onus is on the African states, not their regional or trading partners, to implement economic institutional change.     

绿色议题联盟与复合安全化实践：美国关键矿产联盟的构建逻辑

随着碳中和共识成为全球气候治理的主流认知,关键矿产作为支撑清洁能源转型的核心要素,对一国在世界低碳秩序转型中能否获得绿色竞争优势具有重要影响。面对中国等新兴大国的绿色崛起,美国对本国在关键矿产供应上的结构性劣势产生了浓重的霸权焦虑和不安全感。为此,美国选择对传统联盟体系进行调整,试图通过构建绿色议题联盟重塑对竞争对手的战略优势。为了解决联盟调整过程中的合法性约束和政策性约束,美国开启了复合安全化实践。其中,美国的安全化话语实践框定了联盟调整的合法性问题,针对国内民众和外部盟友塑造了关键矿产领域的不安全感,明确了议题联盟需要对抗的目标和具体做法。美国的安全化政策实践则在话语实践的基础上推动了与外部盟友之间在关键矿产问题上的政策协调,在双边和多边层面建立了一系列相互嵌套、兼顾多方位需求的合作机制。安全化话语实践和安全化政策实践相互交织,推动了以美国为主导的关键矿产联盟不断成形。然而,美国关键矿产联盟在理念、分歧管理和资源支撑等方面都存在较为明显的缺陷,其效力难以达到美国政府的预期。     

Analytical Fingerprint of Wolframite Ore Concentrates

Ongoing violent conflicts in Central Africa are fueled by illegal mining and trading of tantalum, tin, and tungsten ores. The credibility of document‐based traceability systems can be improved by an analytical fingerprint applied as an independent method to confirm or doubt the documented origin of ore minerals. Wolframite (Fe,Mn)WO₄ is the most important ore mineral for tungsten and is subject to artisanal mining in Central Africa. Element concentrations of wolframite grains analyzed by laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry are used to establish the analytical fingerprint. The data from ore concentrate samples are multivariate, not normal or log‐normal distributed. The samples cannot be regarded as representative aliquots of a population. Based on the Kolmogorov–Smirnov distance, a measure of similarity between a sample in question and reference samples from a database is determined. A decision criterion is deduced to recognize samples which do not originate from the declared mine site.