Congo's Wealth
Photo: africanews.com
KINSHASA — A new investigation alleging that thousands of tonnes of uranium moved illegally from the Democratic Republic of Congo to China over two decades exposes a pattern that has defined Congo's relationship with global power for more than a century: its resources enrich others while its people remain among the poorest on earth.
Lighthouse Reports, in an investigation published with Semafor, estimates that between 2,000 and 5,000 tonnes of uranium were exported to China between 2000 and 2024, despite a Congolese law barring commercial uranium exports. The uranium allegedly moved as a by-product of cobalt operations in Katanga, including mines once controlled by American firms and now owned by a Chinese company. Shinkolobwe, the mine that supplied uranium for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was formally closed in 2004, but the allegations suggest extraction from the surrounding area never really stopped.
This is the same story with the names changed. Congolese uranium built the American nuclear arsenal while Congo remained a colony. Congolese cobalt now powers Chinese battery and electronics supply chains while Congo remains one of the poorest nations on the continent, its people mining much of that cobalt by hand for a few dollars a day.
The deeper issue is structural: global mineral markets were built to move raw material out of Africa and finished value in from elsewhere, a design inherited from the colonial economy and barely altered since independence. Congo exports ore; the smelting, refining and manufacturing that create real profit happen in China, in Europe, in the United States. The country holding the minerals holds almost none of the leverage — which is why a smuggling scheme of this scale could allegedly run for twenty years with so little accountability.
Framing this as a contest between American and Chinese influence misses the point. A Congo that simply swaps a Chinese buyer for an American one has not changed its position in the global economy — only its customer. Real sovereignty means Congo sets the terms: an independent, published audit of uranium-bearing mineral flows from Katanga, domestic processing capacity to capture more value at home, transparent contracts, and enforcement of its own laws against whoever breaks them. Shinkolobwe once helped reshape the world, and Congo was never paid for that. The question these allegations pose is whether the same arrangement is still being made today, quietly, and whether Congolese leaders will let it continue.