Beijing Doesn’t Know Who to Blame for Gold Mine Murders

At around 5 a.m. on March 19, a group of armed men attacked the Chimbolo gold mine in the Central African Republic (CAR), killing nine Chinese citizens and injuring two more. The mayor of the nearby town of Bambari, Abel Matchipata, said the victims were “executed with a bullet to the head.” The mine had opened only days earlier.

It is still unclear who perpetrated the crime, which was condemned by the CAR government. Matchipata blamed the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), an alliance of rebel groups hostile to CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra. The CPC, however, denied any involvement and instead claimed that the attack was conducted by the Wagner Group, Russian mercenaries backing the central government.

This attack—the deadliest yet against Chinese citizens in CAR—is part of a broader pattern of violence against Chinese citizens in the country and across the region. It highlights an increasingly difficult challenge for the Chinese government: securing Chinese citizens and investments in regions without stable security environments. The tension between the China’s non-interventionism and wolf warrior propaganda, coupled with private companies chasing dangerous profits in competition with both domestic and foreign forces, makes some parts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) too messy for Beijing’s liking.

Chinese President Xi Jinping personally issued an “important directive” calling for “severe punishment” for those who perpetrated the Chimbolo attack. The Chinese foreign ministry activated its consular emergency response mechanism and put all of CAR, except the capital Bangui, on a red security alert.

A Chinese intelligence firm has reportedly begun an investigation into the Chimbolo attack. One Chinese gold-mining worker in central Africa told Chinese media that the targeted company, Gold Coast Group, was new, the first company to operate in this particular dangerous rebel-held area, and hired only 10 security guards for its two mining sites. Victor Bissekoin, head of the Ouaka prefecture in which the attack took place, said there was no counterfire from the unit of around 20 army personnel tasked with protecting the site.

CAR’s abundant mineral resources, particularly gold, have attracted a number of small and largely privately held Chinese companies to the country. Those companies have earned mixed reputations and, driven by their own economic motives, participate in illegal mining activities. Various companies, including Central African Mining Industry (IMC), Zhigou Mining, Thien Pao, and HW-Lepo have been criticized by the government for various abuses. Four other Chinese companies—Tian Xiang, Tian Run, Meng, and SMC Mao—also drew criticism from Amnesty International, and have since left CAR.

The day after the Chimbolo attack, the CAR justice minister announced an official 12-person commission of inquiry to find those responsible within 21 days. Before the announcement, CAR Prime Minister Félix Moloua had already blamed the CPC, whose personnel were named by the U.N. peacekeeping mission to the country as the biggest culprits of human rights violations in Ouaka prefecture during the weeks preceding the attack. The rebels have a history of attacking gold mines as part of their competition with the Wagner Group for the country’s lucrative mineral resources.

Others have singled out the Wagner Group as a potential culprit. In a press statement, the CPC claimed that the attack was carried out by the Wagner Group “with the goal of scaring the Chinese.” Local vigilantes patrolling the street leading to the mine at the time of the incident described the assailants to one Western media outlet as being “white soldiers” dressed in Wagner Group military uniforms. Western officials in the capital of Bangui and a former Wagner Group worker noted that while rebel groups have previously kidnapped foreigners for ransom, they typically do not kill them.

Wagner is a plausible suspect, but not a comfortable one for either Bangui or Beijing. The Wagner Group now has between 1,200 and 2,000 troops in CAR, and has been actively supporting the central government against rebel forces since its arrival in 2018; simultaneously, it has extended Russia’s influence in the country. The group has been accused by Human Rights Watch, the U.N., United States, and EU of summary executions and torture of civilians in CAR; it has also been linked to the 2018 assassination of three prominent Russian journalists attempting to investigate its activities in CAR. Numerous reports have detailed how the Wagner Group has been involved in not only security but also economic activities in CAR, notably by exploiting gold mining and other extractive industries. Beyond fighting to advance government-held territory, the group has attacked artisanal gold mines in regular raids for plunder.

The Chimbolo attack occurred one day before Xi traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladmir Putin. If the Wagner Group were responsible for the attack, it would be an embarrassing blemish in the growing alignment between China and Russia on global issues. The leaders’ joint statement released at the end of Xi’s trip declared that “[t]he two sides will strengthen communication and coordination on African affairs”—a slightly eyebrow-raising statement given the two countries’ history of selective competition in Africa, which in some places has become an outright rivalry over deals in industries such as gold mining.

Over the past year, the Wagner Group significantly expanded its mining operations in CAR in order to help finance Russia’s war against Ukraine. Analysts predict that the war, tacitly supported by China, will eventually produce an influx of Wagner mercenaries in Africa that will further destabilize countries such as CAR and extend Russian influence. But the CAR government is eager for support from both great powers. Days after the Chimbolo attack, a group of pro-government supporters held a rally in Bangui with Russian flags and banners that read, “Russia is Wagner, we love Russia and we love Wagner” and “Support China.”

CAR diplomatically recognized Taiwan during three periods in the 1900s, but now officially follows Beijing’s One China policy and is deepening its relations with China. In 2021, China opened a Confucius Institute in Bangui, and later that year CAR joined the BRI. Trade has slowly increased between the two countries over the past two decades. Export to China, which are mostly wood products, valued an estimated $50.8 million in 2020, out of CAR’s $127 million total exports. This made China CAR’s largest export partner; and Beijing was Bangui’s third-largest import partner.

Last September, Beijing removed tariffs on 98 percent of goods imported from nine of Africa’s least-developed countries, including CAR. Over the past few years, China has deepened ties with the CAR establishment by providing training programs for Central African police and journalists. In 2019, CAR unveiled its new Ministry of Mines and Geology building, a gift from China through two companies, one of which is a Chinese state-owned defense manufacturer. China also on multiple occasions built and renovated Friendship Hospital, one of Bangui’s four hospitals, where the victims of the Chimbolo attack were brought.

But friendly relations have not shielded Chinese citizens from harm in a country where violence is common and foreigners offer a tempting target for extortion. One week before the Chimbolo attack, three Chinese citizens were kidnapped by armed men near the village of Gbembo in western CAR, where they were pursuing mining activities. This follows the kidnapping of a Chinese mining company director in November 2022 near Yéléwa, by the CAR-Cameroon border. In November 2021, local media reported that Wagner mercenaries kidnapped 10 Chinese citizens and stole their mining equipment, forcing the Chinese company to pay a $100,000 ransom. In October 2018, three Chinese miners were killed in an altercation with locals in Sosso-Nakombo, in western CAR.

In the wake of the Chimbolo attack, Touadéra is reportedly planning a trip to China to reassure officials and investors. But given CAR’s weak security environment, there is little that Touadéra can promise, and few options are available to the Chinese government. The embassy cannot force citizens to stay in Bangui.

The CAR central government cannot enforce its rule in much of the country, forcing Chinese actors to negotiate with unpredictable local groups to maintain their security. And China’s non-interventionist policies limit its own ability to fill the security gap when things go wrong. The surge of small, inexperienced companies with inadequate risk management is “a recipe for disaster,” said Alessandro Arduino, co-director of the Security and Crisis Management program at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, on the China in Africa podcast.

Moreover, there are numerous incentives for local actors in CAR to target Chinese citizens. Armed groups have received ransom payments from multiple Chinese mining companies after threatening or kidnapping their workers. Attacks that scare away the central government’s biggest foreign investor also provide rebels with strategic gains in domestic political struggles. And as Islamic State-aligned groups spread throughout the region, China’s continued oppression of Uyghurs provides potential ideological reasons to attack Chinese actors, as seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Local resistance is also rooted in more defensive motivations. Often, the CAR central government sells land to Chinese investors without consent from the communities that own it, and sometimes with false concessions. Some companies have paid millions in mining royalties and still gotten caught in the middle. A 2019 U.S. Agency for International Development report showed that several Chinese mining companies had polluted the environment and failed to fulfill promises for infrastructure construction. All of this leads to local pushback, which can turn violent. As CAR analyst John Lechner noted on his blog, “Contrary to popular narratives, China—a country that ‘doesn’t play by the rules’—has an exceedingly difficult time navigating a no-rules environment.”

The danger extends to other countries in the region. In the past three years alone, Chinese citizens, often working in the mining industry, have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, and kidnapped in Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Kenya, just to name some examples. Similar incidents targeting Chinese citizens have occurred in BRI countries outside of Africa, too.

And yet, with high profit motives, Chinese engagement in Africa will likely continue. “The Chinese have a very, very high tolerance of risk,” said Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the U.S. National Defense University, on the BBC’s Africa Daily podcast. Nantulya predicted that Chinese mining would continue in CAR, as it had after previous attacks.

The Chinese government is thus left in an awkward position. After echoing Xi’s condemnation and the embassy’s warnings, state media has remained relatively quiet on the Chimbolo attack. Articles on the subject distanced the government by reiterating that the Chinese company was privately owned and omitting its name. On Weibo, there were signs that the topic was censored, as most posts under a search for terms such as “China and Africa” yielded only official and verified accounts, and some negative comments were reportedly deleted.

Primed with high expectations, some netizens voiced their frustration with the lack of a strong state response. One wrote: “For the rise of China … everyone anywhere in distress should be rescued by the state in time. Why doesn’t our media report in depth?” Referencing a scene from the movie Wolf Warrior 2, which depicts Chinese soldiers rescuing their compatriots in Libya, another wondered: “Doesn’t it mean that everything will be fine if you take out the Chinese flag?”