Keypoints:
- Critical minerals are increasing Africa’s geopolitical leverage
- China, the US, Europe, India and Gulf states are competing for access
- Industrialisation remains the real test of success
CHINA-AFRICA trade reached a record $275bn in 2024, according to the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and the African Economic Research Consortium. Yet beneath that headline achievement lies a more significant shift: Chinese loan commitments to Africa fell to just $2.1bn, underscoring how the relationship is evolving from one defined by finance to one increasingly shaped by strategic resources.
For much of the past two decades, the prevailing narrative around China-Africa relations was straightforward. China had capital, technology, industrial capacity and a vast appetite for resources. Africa needed infrastructure, investment and access to global markets.
The balance of power largely favoured Beijing.
Today, that equation is changing.
For the first time in decades, African governments possess a degree of leverage that previous generations could only imagine. The global race for critical minerals has elevated Africa’s importance, while competition among China, the United States, Europe, India and Gulf states has created new opportunities for resource-rich countries to negotiate from a stronger position. The challenge now is converting leverage into lasting economic transformation.
China’s retreat is creating a new landscape
The most significant change in the China-Africa relationship is financial.
Chinese loan commitments to Africa have collapsed from the heights reached during the peak years of the Belt and Road Initiative. Recent trends analysed by Africa Briefing show that Africa is now repaying China more than it borrows, highlighting how the financial relationship has entered a fundamentally different phase.
The era of massive Chinese-funded infrastructure expansion is drawing to a close.
Throughout the 2000s and much of the 2010s, Chinese policy banks financed highways, railways, ports, airports and power stations across Africa. Governments seeking infrastructure often had few alternatives. China largely dictated the terms of engagement because it controlled the capital.
That dynamic is changing.
Debt pressures have made Beijing more cautious. African governments are more constrained. Meanwhile, trade, investment and strategic resources are becoming increasingly important drivers of the relationship.
China remains enormously influential. But it no longer enjoys the same degree of financial dominance that characterised the previous era.
The world’s green transition runs through Africa
The real source of Africa’s growing leverage lies beneath the ground.
The transition to electric vehicles, battery storage systems, solar power and renewable energy infrastructure requires unprecedented quantities of critical minerals. Many of those minerals are concentrated in Africa.
The continent possesses some of the world’s most important reserves of cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite, manganese and rare earth elements.
This has transformed Africa from a peripheral supplier of commodities into a strategic battleground in the global competition for industrial supremacy.
China needs these minerals.
The United States needs them.
Europe needs them.
India needs them.
The Gulf states increasingly want them.
Unlike previous commodity booms, the current race for critical minerals is taking place against a backdrop of geopolitical rivalry, supply-chain security concerns and industrial competition.
That creates opportunities for resource-rich African countries to negotiate from a stronger position.
The African Development Bank has repeatedly argued that Africa should use its critical mineral endowment to drive industrialisation rather than remain a supplier of raw materials. Similarly, the International Energy Agency has highlighted the strategic importance of minerals such as cobalt, copper, graphite and lithium in securing global energy-transition supply chains. For African policymakers, the challenge is ensuring that rising demand translates into domestic value creation rather than another commodity boom.
The DRC: leverage in action
If there is one country that best illustrates Africa’s growing importance, it is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The DRC produces the majority of the world’s cobalt, a mineral essential for many battery technologies and energy storage systems.
Without Congolese cobalt, the global energy transition becomes significantly more difficult.
That reality has transformed Kinshasa’s bargaining position.
Over recent years, the government has reviewed mining agreements, challenged foreign operators and sought greater domestic benefits from its mineral wealth. International mining companies and foreign governments increasingly recognise that securing access to Congolese resources requires a more collaborative approach than in the past.
Twenty years ago, the DRC needed investors far more than investors needed the DRC.
Today, the relationship is considerably more balanced.
Botswana: proof that leverage can become power
Perhaps Africa’s most successful example of resource leverage remains Botswana.
For decades, Botswana negotiated increasingly favourable arrangements with De Beers, securing local diamond sorting, trading and processing activities alongside extraction.
The country gradually captured more value from its resources while building domestic capabilities.
Botswana’s experience demonstrates that the real objective is not merely extracting better contracts.
It is moving into higher-value segments of the value chain.
For countries rich in lithium, cobalt and copper, Botswana offers proof that bargaining power can be translated into broader economic gains when supported by strong institutions and policy consistency.
Zimbabwe’s lithium lesson
Zimbabwe offers a contemporary example of this emerging leverage.
As Africa Briefing previously reported, Zimbabwe’s lithium beneficiation strategy reflects a broader push by African governments to capture more value from critical minerals before export.
In 2022, the government prohibited exports of raw lithium ore, arguing that investors should contribute to local processing and value addition rather than merely extracting resources.
The policy directly affected several Chinese companies operating in the country’s rapidly expanding lithium sector.
The move also came amid growing concern over foreign control of strategic mineral assets. Earlier reporting by Africa Briefing found that Chinese firms have established a dominant position in several African lithium markets, increasing pressure on governments to secure greater domestic benefits from the sector.
The significance of the move was political as much as economic.
It demonstrated a willingness to impose conditions on foreign investors in pursuit of industrial objectives. The government recognised that demand for lithium was strong enough to justify a more assertive negotiating stance.
Yet Zimbabwe also illustrates the limits of leverage.
Economic instability, regulatory uncertainty and governance concerns continue to constrain investment and industrial development. Possessing strategic minerals is not the same as building a competitive industrial economy.
Zambia and the power of competition
If strategic minerals create leverage, competition creates power.
This is where Zambia offers an important lesson.
As demand for copper increases, Zambia has attracted interest from Chinese investors, Western mining companies, American development initiatives and Gulf-backed funds.
The significance is not simply the volume of investment.
It is the availability of alternatives.
Countries that depend on a single external partner often have limited negotiating room. Countries with multiple interested investors can play a more active role in shaping outcomes.
India and the Gulf add new options
Much of the discussion surrounding Africa’s strategic importance focuses on China and the West.
Yet some of the most important developments are coming from elsewhere.
India is increasingly seeking secure supplies of critical minerals and energy resources to support its industrial ambitions and growing economy.
Meanwhile, the UAE has emerged as one of Africa’s largest investors in logistics, ports, renewable energy and mining. As Africa Briefing reported, the UAE is increasingly rivalling China’s economic footprint across Africa, particularly in infrastructure, logistics and strategic resources. Saudi Arabia is also deepening its footprint through investments linked to energy transition and food security objectives.
For African governments, the growing role of India and Gulf capital increases strategic options.
The most important shift is therefore not that China is losing influence.
It is that Africa is gaining alternatives.
Alternatives create leverage.
The Indonesia test
The most important comparison may lie outside Africa altogether.
Over the past decade, Indonesia transformed its position in global nickel markets by restricting exports of raw nickel ore and encouraging domestic processing.
The policy attracted billions of dollars in investment, much of it from Chinese firms, into smelters, refining facilities and battery-related industries.
Indonesia moved from being primarily a supplier of raw materials to becoming a more significant industrial participant in the value chain.
Many African policymakers now view this approach as a potential model.
The question facing countries such as the DRC, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia is whether they can achieve a similar transformation.
Can cobalt become battery components?
Can copper become cables and electrical equipment?
Can lithium become cathodes and battery materials?
The answers to those questions will determine whether today’s leverage becomes tomorrow’s industrial capacity.
Why the pendulum has not fully swung
Despite the growing optimism, it would be premature to declare that Africa now holds the upper hand.
China continues to dominate mineral processing, battery manufacturing, solar panel production and numerous clean-energy technologies.
Much of the value generated by Africa’s minerals still accrues elsewhere.
Leverage is not the same as power.
Resource ownership is not the same as industrialisation.
The pendulum has begun to move, but it remains far from the centre.
The decade that matters
Africa’s opportunity is real.
The continent is entering a period in which demographic growth, strategic minerals, expanding markets and geopolitical competition are converging to create new possibilities.
At the same time, the African Continental Free Trade Area and the African Union’s industrialisation ambitions provide frameworks through which African countries can capture more value from their resources and build regional supply chains.
Africa’s leverage is growing not because China is weakening, but because the world increasingly needs what Africa possesses.
The winners will be those countries that use this moment to build industries, develop skills, expand manufacturing and capture more value from strategic minerals rather than simply export another generation of raw materials. Africa may finally hold stronger cards. The challenge now is learning how to play them.
