China’s Raw Materials Diplomacy and Governance Cycle: Toward Sustainable Mining and Resource Extraction?

Abstract

China’s raw materials diplomacy and unregulated purchasing of minerals in Africa and Latin America, as well as its domestic raw materials export quota, have for years been eyed with suspicion by state and private actors. Industrialized countries want to uphold and extend free market access to raw materials, but also strengthen their political accountability and sustainability. However, critics argue that in contrast, China, the world’s largest metals and minerals trading power, has taken the opposite course, ignoring social and environmental standards, reinforcing authoritarian governments, and erecting trade barriers. China is faced with several interrelated challenges in its resource diplomacy and governance. This article claims that an identifiable, chronological connection and pattern has existed between China’s aid and investment diplomacy for resources since the late 1990s, free trade agreements since the 2000s, Beijing’s resource nationalism since the 2010s, and the reform process of national and privately organized transnational governance toward sustainability in the present day. Is China socializing with emerging transnational standards on mining and resource extraction in the developing world, and if so, why? This article argues that China’s raw materials governance, including corporate governance, has entered a phase of reform to pacify the external environment and to implement the Belt and Road Initiative. In theoretical terms, China’s raw materials governance will continue to emphasize neoliberal and neo-mercantilist goals, cushioned by globalist features.