In Geopolitics This Week
China and Russia Reaffirm Cooperative Bilateral Relations, The US and China Scramble for Resources in the DRC, US F-35 Crash Prompts Grounded Aircraft and Halted Deliveries, and other stories.
China and Russia Reaffirm Cooperative Bilateral Relations
In a recent meeting between the heads of state of China and Russia, President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that their partnership was more important than ever in the face of “unprecedented pressure” from the United States and its allies. Both Russia and China have come under strict US sanctions, leading Moscow and Beijing to rely more heavily on each other amid mounting domestic and international crises.
Putin and Xi vowed to deepen bilateral cooperation amid growing geopolitical tensions, with Putin expressing a desire to strengthen military collaboration. Xi said that China was ready to increase strategic cooperation with Russia and to provide each other with development opportunities in a “difficult and far from straightforward” international environment. Xi and Putin agreed to jointly strengthen port and energy infrastructure, combat sanctions, and promote a more “just and reasonable” international order.
Russia is now one of China’s leading oil & gas suppliers, with 13.8 billion cubic meters of gas shipped to China in the first 11 months of 2022. Russia has now overtaken Saudi Arabia as China's top crude supplier due to the availability of discounted Russian Urals oil. Russia is also China's second-largest supplier of pipeline gas and the fourth-largest supplier of liquefied natural gas.
Ties between Moscow and Beijing have grown this year, with China maintaining its refusal to openly criticize Russia's actions in Ukraine and Russia increasingly supporting China in its tensions with the US over Taiwan. At the same time, both countries are facing domestic difficulties, with Putin trying to maintain support for the ongoing war in Ukraine and Xi dealing with a significant surge in COVID-19 cases.
The US and China Scramble for Resources in the DRC
The United States and Europe are looking to reduce their dependence on China for electric vehicle batteries and are considering investing over $160 billion in new capital spending elsewhere to achieve this goal by 2030. This will translate to increased investment in resource-rich countries that offer low-wage labour, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The DRC possesses an abundance of minerals regularly used in technology, including cobalt and copper. The US has already signed deals with the DRC and Zambia to support the development of an electric vehicle value chain in these countries. With these deals Washington is looking to ensure that a stable flow of critical minerals remains in place.
Chinese companies have invested heavily in the DRC's cobalt mines in recent years, and China today sources roughly 60% of its cobalt imports from the DRC. However, with increased US involvement, the DRC has attempted to renegotiate its contracts with Chinese mining companies. This has led to some tension between Beijing and Kinshasa over these deals. The US has criticized China for its loans to African nations, which it believes are designed to seize African assets.
For its part, the US has a long history of involvement in the DRC. In recent years, the US has played a key role in conflicts in eastern DRC. The region has hundreds of active militant groups, some of which are believed to receive support and training from the militaries of Uganda and Rwanda, both of which are supported and trained by the US. Washington has also deployed Special Forces units to the DRC with the stated goal of fighting an ISIS-affiliated group.
Both Beijing and Washington appreciate the value that access to the DRC's mineral reserves provides, and both are seeking to negotiate favourable deals with Kinshasa. The DRC holds a significant portion of the world's coltan and cobalt, which are critical for the production of electronics and renewable technologies, respectively.
US F-35 Crash Prompts Grounded Aircraft and Halted Deliveries
On December 15, an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter crashed at a Texas base, causing F-35s to be grounded and deliveries to be halted while an investigation into the incident is conducted. A video of the mishap showed an F-35B hovering not far above the ground before descending, bouncing once and tipping forward. Its nose and wing then touch the ground, and the aircraft begins to spin around before the pilot ejects. The incident involved a newly constructed F-35B that had not yet been transferred to the US government.
As a result of the incident, in addition to the reportedly “small” number of US and international F-35 aircraft grounded, the Israeli Air Force has grounded 11 of its advanced F-35I stealth jets. The Israeli military said that these jets would be checked for a similar issue to the one that caused the crash before being returned to service. The F-35I is the Israeli version of the F-35, which is based on the F-35A, and is used for conventional take-off and landing. The B variant, used by the US Marine Corps and other navies, allows for short take-off and vertical landing on aircraft carriers.
Lockheed Martin has since also stopped accepting flights and deliveries of new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters due to an investigation related to the F-35B incident that occurred on the Texas runway. The halt has resulted in fewer F-35 deliveries than the 148 required in 2022, with 141 delivered this year. Despite this, the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin recently finalized a contract worth roughly $30 billion to deliver up to 398 F-35s for the US and other international customers.