The battle for rare metals: The US and China are already competing in Africa for cobalt and gold deposits.

Fully controlled, and possibly even fully integrated into the regular army, militants are seizing resource-rich territories of a neighboring country. No, this is not about the occupation of the Ukrainian Donbas by Russian proxies in 2014. This is the storyline of events currently unfolding in Central Africa, where Rwanda has unleashed a hybrid war against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following a very familiar script.

Fighting for Over Half a Century

In mid-February 2025, the M-23 militant group captured the city of Bukavu, home to around 2 million people. Kiran Vrons-Passmann, Managing Director of the Ecumenical Network of Central Africa in Berlin, notes that the capture of the airfield in this province cuts off the entire eastern part of Congo from communication with government forces, thereby placing it under the control of the rebels. This is quite an extraordinary event in the ongoing conflict that has been raging in eastern Congo since 2021 and has intensified in recent weeks.

The M-23 group is one of nearly a hundred armed factions operating in the beleaguered Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which was known as Zaire until 1997. In fact, the war in this large central African nation (covering over 2 million square kilometers) has persisted since its inception in this format. The Congolese have found themselves at the center of the largest war on the continent in modern history and one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world since the end of World War II. Since then, the country has not known true peace.

A Juicy Target for Natural Resources

Congo is extraordinarily rich in natural resources. The country exports copper, tin, gold, tungsten, and other valuable metals. However, the extraction of tantalum and cobalt is particularly significant—these metals are used in the production of cutting-edge electronics. Congo accounts for about 80% of global cobalt exports, which, along with lithium, is a key component in the manufacturing of solar panels and batteries for vehicles. In the context of the technological rivalry between the USA and China, territories rich in such minerals are destined to be at the center of a "duel" between superpowers.

A similar situation exists in neighboring countries. For example, Rwanda is the world's largest exporter of tantalum—another crucial component for modern electronics. American corporations have been involved in mining in both countries. The most powerful among them was Freeport-McMoRan, whose subsidiary Tenke Fungurume Mining extracted a significant portion of the minerals in the DRC, including holding one of the largest copper and cobalt deposits in the world. AVX Corporation, KEMET Corporation, and Global Advanced Metals are engaged in the extraction and export of minerals in Rwanda.

China Moves into Africa

With the dawn of the 21st century, the situation changed. China entered Africa. In search of raw materials to develop its latest technologies, the PRC invested around $155 billion in the Sahel region. In particular, the Chinese company China Molybdenum Co acquired Tenke—after which this Chinese contractor became the largest player in Congo's mining industry, accounting for one-third of global cobalt supplies. China meets 70% of its cobalt needs through imports from Congo. Other Chinese corporations—China Railway Group Limited and Sinohydro Corp—formed a joint venture, Sicomines, for the extraction and transportation of copper and cobalt. In 2024, they committed to invest about $7 billion in the relevant production infrastructure.

Other powerful players in the DRC's mining market include Zijin Mining Group Ltd (which replaced Western companies that left the republic due to military conflicts) and China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co., Ltd, which owns a copper processing and refining plant in the Lualaba province. Together, these two corporations invested more than $20 billion in the sector. They now control about two-thirds of the market for copper extraction and processing in the country.

In Rwanda, the Chinese primarily focused on construction projects. For instance, the China Road and Bridge Corporation built 70% of the roads in the country.

Americans Need African Raw Materials

By controlling the sites of strategic mineral extraction, Beijing gains a powerful lever of influence over the global market for innovations and technologies. The ultimate consumers of African minerals mainly remain well-known brands such as Intel, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard. To maintain their image, they attempt to distance themselves from using resources from scandalous regions and even established the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), which aims to ensure transparency in supply chains and demonstrate compliance with ethical principles. Currently, Apple claims that it has stopped using raw materials from Congo; however, whether this statement will translate into real actions, or if these and other tech giants will continue to seek various gray avenues for access to such coveted resources, remains to be seen and may depend on future scandals.

In recent years, Western companies have tried to return to the region by establishing logistics infrastructure. For example, Biden's last international visit to Angola aimed, among other things, to visit the Lobito logistics corridor (a joint project of the USA and the EU), which connects the mining sites in Congo to the Atlantic ports of the country. The EU invested 900 million euros in the Global Gateway project, which aims to transport strategic resources from Rwanda to the European Union.

Echoes of a Long-Standing Genocide: Hutu, Tutsi, and Modern War

The key question in this entire celebration of distributing Africa's natural resources is: who ultimately controls them? The government of the DRC sometimes resorts to deploying troops directly at Chinese enterprises or along logistical routes, but in reality, the official government in Kinshasa has never controlled the entire territory over which the DRC's sovereignty is officially claimed. The fact is that after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, a significant portion of the Hutu forces retreated to Congo, where they were pursued by the Tutsi. Ultimately, this provoked two Congolese wars, which involved several African countries between 1996 and 2002.

Even after the conclusion of negotiations, Kinshasa failed to gain effective control over its eastern provinces. This was exploited by the Rwandan government, which began accusing Congo of being unable to ensure security at the borders. In the capital of Rwanda—Kigali—various explanations were provided for their interference in the affairs of their large neighbor. There were quite rational concerns about the dangers posed by the gray zone, which is not controlled by the internationally recognized government in Kinshasa. Various armed groups were forming there—from the militant Hutu forces, which pose a threat to Rwanda, which suffered from genocide, to jihadist groups whose threat is well known.

All Methods Are Fair in the Struggle for Resources

Meanwhile, Rwanda is not averse to invoking the "historical belonging of modern Congolese territories to great Rwanda." The last time this was mentioned was by the country's president, Paul Kagame, in a public speech in 2023. Rwanda's claims to Congolese territory were openly discussed at a diplomatic reception by Pasteur Bizimungu (Rwanda's leader from 1994 to 2000), who even showed foreign diplomats a map where Rwanda is one and a half times larger than the internationally recognized borders. Bizimungu stated that modern African borders are a product of colonial history.

However, official historical science cannot provide evidence that any state formations related to modern Rwanda ever actually controlled the territories of modern Congo.

Rebels Take the Stage: What is the M-23 Group?

The most powerful force controlled by Rwanda in the DRC is the March 23 Movement (M-23), named after one of the peace agreements signed on March 23, 2009. However, just three years later, Rwandan-controlled forces began a new uprising. At that time, the UN even managed to form an unprecedented peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, under which an offensive brigade was deployed that managed to suppress the uprising. The leading European countries then imposed powerful sanctions against Rwanda, including the suspension of financial aid amounting to $240 million.

The following eight years passed in relative calm until, in 2021, M-23 temporarily seized the border town of Goma. The current offensive also began with the capture of Goma, but this time the rebels are determined to push further. Political and management analyst in Southern Africa, Sandile Swana, notes that Congo cannot cope with the rebels alone, and involving other countries