The Lobito Paradox: How Europe’s De-Risking Strategy Reveals Deeper Chinese Entanglement

The Lobito Corridor was presented as a means for Europe to diversify its mineral supply chain away from Chinese dominance. Instead, it reveals how deeply Chinese capital has shaped the region. Europe’s flagship project under the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package is built on Chinese-financed infrastructure and operated by a consortium with partial Chinese ownership. Brussels introduced the corridor at the 6th European Union–African Union (AU) Summit as a strategic export route for critical raw materials. The 1,739-kilometre railway network connects the mineral-rich areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia to Angola. It offers the shortest route from the Copperbelt to the coast, cutting transit times to the Atlantic from over thirty days to under eight. This is important for Europe because exporters favour the fastest route, and whoever controls the route ultimately shapes where the minerals are processed and refined. 

The corridor operationalises the logic of ‘de-risking’ – a strategy which EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described as a necessary way to reduce dependencies on China without fully decoupling. While Brussels frames this project as a transparent, values-based alternative for Global South partners, the narrative of strategic autonomy is weakened by the true extent of the structural dependencies between China and the EU. It unintentionally reveals the limits of Western de-risking in a region heavily shaped by Chinese investment. In practice, the corridor represents a complex and dense network of interdependencies that forces Europe into adopting a managed coexistence approach with its systemic rival. This entanglement operates in three ways: the infrastructure itself, the ownership of the minerals, and the financial structure of its Western operators, revealing the extent to which Chinese capital remains embedded.

The Reality of Inherited Infrastructure

The corridor’s limits become evident when looking at the foundations on which it was created. The Lobito Corridor was built on the remnants of the Benguela Railway, which was first completed in 1931 under Portuguese rule to facilitate the export of mineral resources. However, the Angolan Civil War left the railway largely destroyed, with less than 3% remaining operational. This extractive design nevertheless created a path dependency that China subsequently reinforced, embedding Beijing’s leverage and technical standards into Angola’s rail infrastructure. Between 2006 and 2013, China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) – a state-owned Chinese enterprise – rebuilt the railway as part of its infrastructure-for-resources strategy. Under what became known as the Angola Model, concessional loans from China Eximbank financed transport, housing, and rail projects. This model diverted Angola’s oil to China for debt repayment rather than selling the oil for revenue. With oil locked into loan payments, Angola lacked the financial capacity to provide maintenance, upgrades, and stock renewal, which led to persistent operational bottlenecks for Caminho de Ferro de Benguela (CFB) – the state-owned operator of the Benguela Railway. CFB struggled with frequent delays and empty cargo trains, revealing the vulnerability of the resource-backed repayment system. To reduce dependencies on oil revenues, attracting private capital and diversifying Angola’s diplomatic partnerships, Angolan President João Lourenço enacted sweeping reforms by reducing bureaucratic barriers and opening key sectors to investors. The 2022 concession tender for the Benguela Railway became a test case for the reforms.

Given China’s past involvement, observers expected the 30-year operating contract to be given to a Chinese state-backed group. Instead, the Angolan government ultimately selected the Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) – an alliance led by Portuguese infrastructure operator Mota-Engil (49.5% share), Singapore-based Swiss commodity trader Trafigura (49.5%), and Belgian rail firm Vecturis (1%). Brussels and Washington immediately framed the outcome as a geopolitical victory and concrete evidence of the Group of Seven’s (G7) Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) success. However, despite its political symbolism, the concession does not resolve the deeper structural layers of Chinese finance, construction, and commercial ties. Conceptually, the Benguela Railway is not a greenfield project, but rather inherited infrastructure, built to Chinese technical standards and financed through Chinese state-backed lending. The railway’s reconstruction can be seen as a politico-economic bargain that continues to shape the distribution of control, ownership, and strategic influence along the corridor today. Thus, a significant share of Global Gateway capital flowing into the corridor – such as the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation’s (DFC) 553 million USD loan to LAR – is allocated for upgrading and operationalising existing infrastructure originally stamped by Beijing. LAR’s operations may improve efficiency compared to CFB’s past management, yet this does not diminish the structural challenge that extends into cargo ownership and the financial structure of the consortium. 

The Anatomy of Entanglement 

The corridor’s success lies in transporting copper and cobalt from the Copperbelt, and though LAR may now operate the train, China predominantly owns the cargo. According to data from the Wilson Center, China’s state-backed enterprises currently hold approximately 72% of active copper and cobalt mines in the DRC. The most notable is the Tenke Fungurume Mine, which is one of the world’s largest reserves of high-quality cobalt. This is an active move from Beijing, leveraging market conditions as part of its broader national objectives. According to the Cobalt Institute, Chinese firm CMOC Group contributed to a surplus in global cobalt supply by increasing production at its mines in the DRC to 31% above capacity. This pushed prices to nine-year lows, rendering Western-owned mining projects economically risky. Unless there is a major overhaul in upstream ownership, the Corridor could end up acting as a subsidised express lane for Chinese-owned mineral wealth rather than a tool for diversification.

The most critical oversight, however, is the presence of Chinese state capital within the concessionaire itself. Mota-Engil handles the Maintenance Service Contract, giving it the responsibility to execute upgrades and carry out long-term maintenance along the Angolan section of the corridor. Yet, it is 32.41% owned by the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) – a major Chinese state-owned enterprise sanctioned by the U.S. The U.S. has described the CCCC and other similar enterprises as a primary tool for Beijing’s ‘predatory’ infrastructure initiative. In practice, this gives Mota-Engil influence over the physical condition and efficiency of the Angolan corridor. It grants access to sensitive data on freight volumes, scheduling, and logistical requirements. Importantly, the continued operation of the railway depends on acquiring new rolling stock – 35 locomotives and 1,555 freight wagons are needed to move minerals at scale – in which the CCCC is directly involved. This means that for the next three decades, those responsible for the physical integrity of the line are structurally linked to the CCCC. This ‘technical lock-in’ forces the corridor to rely on Chinese spare parts and maintenance systems, strategically maintaining the railway’s “Chinese engineering DNA”. Moreover, an indirect equity stake of approximately 16% potentially gives Mota-Engil and its Chinese shareholders influence over important decisions. This could enable the blocking of strategic plans, annual budgets, or any acquisition over 50 million EUR.

These entanglements extend from infrastructure into the financial architecture of the G7 partners. Trafigura, the main operator, relies on Chinese loans and is deeply integrated into Chinese financial markets. This can be seen in their recent 1.5 billion CNY Panda Bond issuance, as well as in Asian syndicated markets backed by Chinese lenders. As stated by the CFO, Christophe Salmon, the firm hopes to be a “recurring issuer” in China. This in itself creates yet another pressure point. Theoretically, in a geopolitical crisis, Beijing could leverage access to credit markets as a way to influence decision-making along the corridor. This dynamic pushes the EU into a position of “managed coexistence” in an effort to secure its own critical supply chains. Rather than taking sides, these mineral-rich nations are making use of the strategic opening that arises from the competing interests of Brussels and Beijing. 

Can Europe and Africa Align Industrial Visions?

Instead of pursuing a full disentanglement, Europe must accept a hard truth: de-risking requires managing interdependence rather than eliminating it. The central question, therefore, shifts to how competing actors – including African states themselves – navigate, mitigate, and leverage this inherited system to pursue their own strategic and developmental objectives. In this context, the corridor serves as a bargaining chip, trading reliable transport for investment in local factories. 

African states are leveraging the great-power competition to demand mutually beneficial terms and genuine economic diversification. Leaders in Zambia and the DRC are calling for beneficiation in the form of local processing, value-addition requirements, and non-negotiable terms, aiming to maximise their national development goals and shape investment conditions. This is evident in the DRC, where the government used the current supply vacuum to facilitate a technical partnership with the Belgian Material firm Umicore and the state-owned Gécamines subsidiary (STL) to process germanium concentrates locally. However, this pragmatic policy shift does not represent a complete withdrawal from cooperation with China. In fact, China remains a major financier that can fund and supply on a large scale due to its central government’s ability to unilaterally mobilise state capital and direct state-owned enterprises to act. Therefore, projects planned by Beijing are most often executed, whereas Western commitments often fall short when urgency is required. The Global Gateway aims to mobilise 300 billion EUR by 2027 through private capital, despite Europe historically avoiding high-risk African markets. 

Nevertheless, this African imperative of conditional access creates a misalignment with the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). Through the CRMA, Europe prioritises job creation in European manufacturing, technology retention in strategic sectors, and supply chain resilience through proximity. Brussels argues that processing under these conditions allows for a more reliable supply compared to facilities in politically unstable regions. While the corridor physically connects the two continents, their industrial roadmaps could head in opposite directions. Fundamentally, this reflects the mismatch between the CRMA domestic processing goals and African policy frameworks that condition mineral exports on local industrial benefits. For the Copperbelt countries, the Lobito Corridor is only valuable if it dismantles the colonial ‘pit-to-port model’ where low-value raw ore is exported, and high-value finished products are imported.

With African nations receiving competing offers from various countries, Europe faces a choice: redefine strategic autonomy to include African processing capacity or risk African states redirecting minerals to partners more willing to invest in local capacity. Can Brussels accept the idea of “friend-shoring” industrial capacities in Africa? EU-backed projects, such as the Kabanga Nickel project, are projected to reach full capacity by 2029 at the earliest. However, until then, the Lobito Corridor will remain a feeder into Chinese-dominated value chains unless Europe fully embraces that “friend-shoring” in Africa means building factories, not just financing railways that pass through the region. The answer to these questions will undoubtedly tell whether the Lobito Corridor succeeds at its overarching goal of de-risking. 

Beyond the Binary of De-Risking

The Lobito Corridor is not a clean break from Chinese influence – it is a test for whether Western governance frameworks can work within a shared ecosystem where China has a foundational early-mover advantage. Intentional de-risking requires EU policymakers to accept shared ownership and operating structures while building robust governance firewalls within them. Policymakers must include strict clauses on data security, procurement transparency, and dispute resolution to mitigate the advantage provided by such embedded equity stakes. Similarly, they must shift focus from owning physical assets to controlling important data, which sets the standard for digital rail management, logistics data, and ESG traceability. Lastly, Europe must utilise the entanglement through joint ventures to enforce European norms; in doing so, Europe can help upskill the ecosystem. The goal is to make the shared system operate on European terms so that the corridor is expensive to weaponise and hard to monopolise.

However, Europe’s ability to execute this strategy depends on Lusaka and Kinshasa more than Brussels or Beijing. African states have emerged as decisive swing actors, demanding local industrialisation in exchange for access to their markets. This forces Europe to confront a harsh dilemma between the rigid pursuit of domestic strategic autonomy and the necessity of flexible “friend-shoring” that aligns with African industrial ambitions. The implication is clear: Brussels must adapt or lose. The credibility of the Global Gateway will depend not on its rhetorical distance from the Belt and Road Initiative, but on whether Brussels can quickly deliver tangible benefits that prove that shared systems do not entail ceding sovereignty. Without concrete investment in African processing capacity, the corridor risks becoming a feeder for Beijing’s mineral strategy rather than a genuine diversification method. African leaders are weighing offers and will choose partners who invest in their industrialisation rather than repeat past exploitative extraction practices. In a region where Chinese capital has deep ties, Europe can succeed in de-risking Chinese control over mineral supply only if it occurs on African terms. This is not a compromise, but a strategic necessity. 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect those of European Guanxi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DaSean Kornegay holds an MA in Economic Policy in Global Markets from Central European University, where his research explored the geopolitics of energy transitions and strategic dependencies. His work focuses on EU critical minerals governance, infrastructure competition, and the role of space-based data strategies. He has worked as a China Policy Analyst intern at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, conducted energy security research in Taiwan, and previously served as a Peace Corps volunteer in China.

This article was edited by Nina Thinnes and Mateusz Tokarz.

Featured Image:  Locomotive D-133 arrives at the railway station in Benguela, Angola / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license  / Free for use  / Wikimedia Commons