Nicolas Denenberg
Research Mentor(s): Congyi Dai
Mentor Department: School for Environment and Sustainability
Authors:
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 44
Abstract
China’s increasing presence in African development raises questions about the relationship between its infrastructure investments and resource extraction in Africa. This study focuses on mineral-specific trends to examine the correlation between Chinese development projects and mining operations. Utilizing two datasets – one tracking Chinese-funded development initiatives and the other tracking mining operations – we can analyze patterns of China’s engagement and their potential implications. Previous research has explored China’s mining and investing practices in Africa, but these existing studies often neglect the correlation between the country’s two priorities. Instead of treating infrastructure development and resource extraction as two separate phenomena, this project aims to address this gap by investigating whether Chinese development projects are strategically placed within Africa to gain a competitive advantage when extracting valuable minerals. Both datasets underwent cleaning and refinement in order to conduct a comparative analysis. Initial analysis has highlighted the importance of Uranium to Chinese investors; early findings suggest that this may coincide with the Chinese nuclear strategy. While preliminary findings have shown a potential linkage between development projects and mineral extraction, further exploration is needed. This research has the potential to contribute to dialogue on economic dependency, resource diplomacy, and environmental impact in Africa. We are considering incorporating an additional dataset to refine our results and find a notable correlation.
