Socio-economic Impacts of China’s Mining Investments in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This chapter examines the socio-economic impacts of China’s mining investments in Zimbabwe, in the context of debates around China’s broader investment initiatives and patterns in Africa. There has been an influx of Chinese mining conglomerates venturing into the mining industry in Zimbabwe in recent years in the light of Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy, following wide-ranging criticisms by Western donors and investors of Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme. While China may benefit from the extraction of Africa’s minerals for purposes of building its own economy, critical questions arise about whether this extraction process is having benefits of any significance for Zimbabwe’s national economy and fiscus as well as for local communities where mining is taking place. The chapter discusses Zimbabwe’s mining sector and the governance challenges currently facing it, as well as China’s likely motives for entering Zimbabwe’s mining sector and the key characteristics of its investments in the mining industry. In doing so, it demonstrates that Chinese mining investments are not bringing about the kind of economic outcomes and impacts for Zimbabwe (in terms of depth and breadth) to warrant the conclusion that the China-Zimbabwe relationship is mutually beneficial, such that development asymmetries characterise this relationship.