China has some modest cobalt reserves in its own country that it's rapidly expanding extraction of, but they do also have significant ownership of cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Tenke Fungureme and others). The DRC is where 60-80% of the world's cobalt is extracted, and where ~50% of the world reserves are.
So it seems pretty likely they're involved in some degree of overseas cringe. Though the choices are admittedly limited, and I couldn't find any explicit reports of wrongdoings, the ethics of the suppliers are dubious at best.
I'm afraid I don't have links, but I remember reading that since China started making moves on cobalt, the rate of 'artisanal' cobalt mining (people with no protective gear scraping cobalt ore out with more or less their bare hands, not for an hourly wage but to 'sell' the ore back to the mine owners) has plummeted and been replaced by normal mechanized professional mining operations.
Because, while the former is superior if you're running the mine to extract the maximum profit by paying low wages and selling for a high price, the latter is better if you want to get a very large amount of cobalt very quickly and efficiently so you can build a lot of infrastructure.
So in China's defence, it does look like their mining operations are significantly more ethical. Though there's still an argument for an exploitative nature of the deal, it looks like a better operation than first appeared.
China has some modest cobalt reserves in its own country that it's rapidly expanding extraction of, but they do also have significant ownership of cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Tenke Fungureme and others). The DRC is where 60-80% of the world's cobalt is extracted, and where ~50% of the world reserves are.
So it seems pretty likely they're involved in some degree of overseas cringe. Though the choices are admittedly limited, and I couldn't find any explicit reports of wrongdoings, the ethics of the suppliers are dubious at best.
I'm afraid I don't have links, but I remember reading that since China started making moves on cobalt, the rate of 'artisanal' cobalt mining (people with no protective gear scraping cobalt ore out with more or less their bare hands, not for an hourly wage but to 'sell' the ore back to the mine owners) has plummeted and been replaced by normal mechanized professional mining operations.
Because, while the former is superior if you're running the mine to extract the maximum profit by paying low wages and selling for a high price, the latter is better if you want to get a very large amount of cobalt very quickly and efficiently so you can build a lot of infrastructure.
Based on my reading artisanal mining has overall significantly reduced from ~50% to ~10% between 2014 and 2020, and during this period, China was equally if not more responsible for dealing with artisanal miners.
However, as of 2020, China simply does not deal with artisanal cobalt mining anymore (jokerfyingly presented as as "bad chinese company bows to pressure and ruins peoples livelihoods (while western ones still use child miners)").
As of 2023 in fact, it looks like the West is leaning back into the direction of artisanal miners and child labour.
So in China's defence, it does look like their mining operations are significantly more ethical. Though there's still an argument for an exploitative nature of the deal, it looks like a better operation than first appeared.
Thanks, I'll save these links. I guess as ever it's more nuanced but at least China seems like a positive influence.
I hadn't seen that last one though - "Is it time to embrace Congo's artisanal cobalt miners?" fucking hell