Tshisekedi – Xi Jinping, towards the improvement of Sino-Congolese relations
The Tshisekedi – Xi Jinping meeting of this Friday, May 26, 2023 augurs well for the future in bilateral relations between the two countries.
But it is a Tshisekedi determined to renegotiate a fifteen-year-old contract that the Democratic Republic of Congo wants to review.
A commission created last March by President Felix Tshisekedi, whose conclusions were revealed on Wednesday May 24 by Reuters, recommends reversing the equity stakes in a company jointly owned with China to make the DRC the majority shareholder.
Arriving in Beijing since Wednesday, President Félix Tshisekedi will stay there until May 28.
The main objective of the Congolese president's visit is economic cooperation.
The Head of State hopes to renegotiate there the terms of an agreement concluded fifteen years ago between the two countries.
Because this agreement, presented at the time as "the contract of the century", first benefits China, to the detriment of the DRC.
From the solution contract to the problems of the Congo…
The "Chinese contract" provides for massive investments by China in the DRC, particularly in road and rail infrastructure, or the construction of around thirty hospitals in exchange for privileged access to Congolese mining resources, particularly the mines of copper and cobalt.
In particular, it led to the creation of a Sino-Congolese joint venture: Sicomines (which brings together Gecamines from the DRC and the GEC, a group of Chinese companies).
At the time, this agreement was presented as a “win-win” partnership which aroused “a lot of hope”, according to Professor Germain Ngoie Tshibambe, from the Department of International Relations at the University of Lubumbashi.
… to disappointment
Fifteen years later, the researcher deplores “the triumph of disillusion” in the face of “the omnipresence of China in Congolese economic life”.
“This strong presence of China in the economic life of the DRC is manifested by the omnipotence of Chinese investments”, explains Germain Ngoie Tshibambe.
80% of the copper and cobalt exported by the DRC goes to China.
“Not only have the Chinese invested in the industrial mining sector, but also the artisanal mining sector.”
The academic details the areas of the Congolese economy in which China is particularly represented: “China is present in the mining sector, but it is also becoming increasingly present in the public works sector.
It is also omnipresent in the road and road infrastructure sector.
There is a project won by China which foresees the construction of more than 1,000 kilometers of roads by China in the eastern DRC.
And another sector is electricity.
In the latter sector, electricity, the power plant projects at Busanga and the dam of the Inga dam megaproject are at the heart of the interest of Chinese investors.
A fool's bargain?
Last February, the Congolese General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) published an audit that caused a stir.
The document mentions overcharging in the work carried out in the DRC, but it notes above all that China has kept less than 50% of its commitments while it has earned ten billion dollars since the signing of the contract, including one billion just in interest paid to Chinese banks for their loans.
The DRC would have withdrawn only a little more than 880 million dollars in profits.
A “fiasco” such for the DRC that the General Inspectorate of Finance is claiming 20 billion dollars in compensation from the Group of Chinese companies.
The head of the IGF, Jules Alingete Key, denounces an “economic colonization” of China.
Mireille Manga, lecturer in political science at the Cameroon Institute of International Relations, refutes this term, even if she welcomes the review of the clauses of the “Chinese contract”.
“After 15 years of cooperation through this contract, multiple interactions, we stop to take stock.
The results observed on the ground do not correspond to the initial expectations and therefore it is normal, as partners and sovereign States, that one party or the other decides to question the agreements and renegotiate them.
It is a normal process of international political life.
Mireille Manga, who coordinated a book published by Éditions Palgrave Macmillan, in October 2022, on “The new Chinese silk roads and new forms of nationalism”, continues: “The General Inspectorate of Finances of the DRC wanted to highlight before the imbalance of this cooperation and the need to renegotiate the partnership.
But it is in no way a question of colonization, because it is about two conscious and very lucid actors in relation to their interests.
The Chinese authorities did not appreciate the new attitude of the Congolese authorities, but they promised the disbursement of 500 million dollars of investment.
This is much less than the three billion from which the DRC hoped to benefit in infrastructure.
Inquiries and investigation
The Kinshasa-Gombe prosecutor opened an investigation in March into certain dysfunctions of the partnership with China.
Several structures have been working for several years to shed light on the irregularities of contracts signed under the Kabila presidency in several areas: the EITI (the Initiative for Transparency in the Extractive Industries), the Congolese Ministry of Mines and Infrastructure, but also NGOs, civil society organizations or even investigative journalists.
Germain Ngoie Tshibambe does not speak of Chinese “imperialism” either, but of disappointment in the hopes placed by the Congolese in the relationship with China: “We thought we were reaping a lot of dividends and we finally see that is a fool's bargain for the DRC.
China, on the other hand, exploits mineral resources.
Some minerals are shipped raw to China, without control, without any monitoring company, the minerals go to factories in China.
Emmanuel Musuyu, the executive secretary of the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations for the Monitoring of Reforms and Public Action (Corap), believes that it is essential that the Congolese authorities do not commit again, for the signing of new contracts , the same errors as for the “Chinese contract”.
“Unfortunately, everything is focused at the level of the presidency" deplores Emmanuel Musuyu.
The risk is very high of forgetting the technicians at the level of the specialized ministries, of civil society.
So, we can renegotiate today and fall back into the same [through] in the days to come, that's our fear.
We therefore call on the Head of State to ensure that it is experts who know what is happening on the ground who negotiate, but not a commission with advisers who cannot help things go well.
mediacongo
.
