How Chinese firms have changed Africa

Outside a bar in Fungurume, a mining town in Congo, men caked in dust spit peanut shells onto the floor. Inside, where Chinese New Year lanterns hang from the walls, Emmanuel (not his real name) explains how things changed after 2016, when a majority stake in the Tengwe Fungurume Mine (tfm) was sold by an American firm to China Molybdenum. He says the new owners tried to cut his salary and used subcontractors who recruit day labourers and eschew safety protocols. He says staff racially abused and hit Congolese workers. “We loved Americans,” he says. “We are fed up with the Chinese. They treat us with total disrespect.” In response, says Emmanuel, some colleagues went on strike and burned the Chinese flag. (China Molybdenum says it adheres to all Congolese laws and international labour standards, and that abuses “cannot possibly be happening within the tfm site.”)