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Just learned that China owns most of the cobalt mines in the DRC. (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Are they responsible for the conditions there?

Of course all of the other "China is imperialist" claims are bullshit but it seems like this is true and could potentially lead to valid accusations of imperialism or at least bad regulations.

What's the reason for what's going on in the Congo, I guess? What is happening on a detailed level? I can't find many resources outside of blatantly western shit.

I know what's going on and like the bad things but I'm asking why basically. Is it China?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I think there's not sufficient information available to really make a case. The people I see (Maoists mostly) who really want to say China is imperialist take a shortcut; they see that there is child labour in cobalt mines in the DRC, and they see that most mines have Chinese-owned shares in it (China doesn't own 100% of any mines, they bought shares into them), and so they go China owns mines + child labor = China is using child labor.

But there is simply no information, or at least convincing information, that I've seen from the detractors. We don't know if:

Mines with majority Chinese ownership are using child labor.
China is even involved in this process or has a say in it.

I've not seen these questions naturally picked up and answered by the critics, they just take the shortcut like I said.

China doesn't involve themselves in other countries' affairs and that's been a very strong policy of theirs since the fiasco of Cambodia and Sino-Soviet split. I'm not sure if child labor is illegal in the DRC but that's for critics to find out if they actually want to study this seriously and not just virtue signal their ideological purity. If child labor is illegal then it's up to DRC to crack down on it, and if it's legal then it's up to them to make it illegal.