According to Reuters, at the spotlight of the mining conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Alpha Monga Mwidia, the managing director of the Congolese state-owned mining company Cominiere, made a statement that drew the attention of the entire audience: "Manono Lithium will produce its first batch of lithium ore in June and immediately start exporting." 

This joint venture, controlled by China's Zijin Mining, will kick off the "lithium mining year" in the Democratic Republic of the Congo amid controversy, and also marks another significant move by China in its strategic mineral resource layout in Africa. 

The June commissioning of the Manono lithium mine is not merely a "start-up ceremony" for a single mine; rather, it is a microcosm of the global lithium battery supply chain reconfiguration: 

For China: Further consolidate "the autonomy in lithium resource control", reduce reliance on lithium mines in Australia (60% of China's lithium imports come from Australia), and provide "close proximity" raw material guarantees for battery giants such as CATL and BYD; 

For the Democratic Republic of the Congo: The "lithium mining economy" era has begun, and it is expected to replicate the success model of copper and cobalt mines (Chinese enterprises' investment in copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has driven a 2% increase in local GDP). However, we need to be vigilant against the recurrence of the "resource curse". 

Regarding the West: The US' plan to "divert the lithium mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo" has failed. If it wants to break China's dominance, it needs to come up with more attractive cooperation plans (such as technology transfer and joint construction of the industrial chain). 

While the technicians of Zijin were debugging the mining equipment, the lithium ore in the Manono deposit was sleeping beneath the surface of the earth. After June, these "white petroleum" will cross the Indian Ocean and become the "energy source" for China's electric vehicle batteries, and will also become the "witness" to the changes in the global lithium battery landscape. 

— Excerpted from the WeChat official account "Economic Observation of the Republic of the Congo"