China’s involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s resource curse mineral driven conflict: an Afrocentric review
Makhura Benjamin Rapanyane
Abstract
Resource curse mineral driven conflicts have taken a major toll in the African continent. Observably, most of the studies which have been conducted do not address major aspects such as the international influence coming from economically powerful countries who rely heavily on Africa’s mineral resources for their economic feed. It is in this context that the current research article is driven by this scholarly major gap that China (second global biggest economy) is deployed as a test case to explore her involvements in the mineral resources curse and conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This article answers a research question on whether international major influencers such as China do have a role to play on resource curse mineral driven incessant conflicts in Africa. Equally, this article argues that China’s Sicomines deal secured with DRC is at the forefront of China’s big indirect role in the continued resource curse mineral driven conflict in the DRC’s Eastern region driven by mineral resource wealth. This argument is achieved methodologically by the deployment of document analysis and content analysis of the prevailing scholarly conversation throughout Africa.