China’s energy insecurity drives it toward Africa’s vast fossil and renewable resources, offering opportunity, but only if Africa ensures local benefit
China’s growing dependence on imported oil and gas has made energy security a central national concern. To reduce vulnerability, Beijing has diversified through global investment, with Africa becoming a key frontier thanks to its abundant hydrocarbons and exceptional renewable potential. The continent’s paradox — vast energy resources yet millions of people without electricity — represents both opportunity for China and a test of African agency. China’s engagements span oil-backed loans, infrastructure like ports and pipelines, renewable projects such as Kenya’s Garissa solar plant, and nuclear technology exports. However, unless these ventures support local industrialization, skills, and value creation, they risk perpetuating extraction without transformation. With initiatives like Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area, African nations are demanding partnerships that prioritize local development and sustainable, equitable growth, which are conditions China must meet to secure lasting influence and reliable energy ties.
China’s energy story in the last three decades is simple and unsettling: Domestic supply has not always kept up with industrial demand. By 2023, more than 70% of China’s oil consumption and nearly half of its natural gas needs were met through imports. Roughly 80% of crude imports transit the Strait of Malacca. Those numbers, beyond abstractions, are very real structural vulnerabilities.
What should a country do when its growth depends on energy that must cross oceans through narrow chokepoints? China answered by globalizing its search for resources, building overland pipelines, investing in renewables at home, and expanding its footprint in regions rich in hydrocarbons and green potential. Africa has become central to that strategy because it offers both conventional reserves and enormous renewable opportunity — if, and this is the key question, both sides are willing to do something different than business as usual.
Africa holds roughly 125 billion barrels of proven oil (about 7.3% of the global total) and 16 trillion cubic meters of natural gas (about 7.6%). At the same time, the continent hosts solar irradiation sufficient in theory to supply far more than local demand, and single projects, like a fully developed Inga Scheme in the Congo, could produce nearly 40 gigawatts, or roughly two-thirds of Africa’s current installed capacity. Yet, more than 600 million people in Africa still lack access to electricity. Those two facts together expose an obvious moral and strategic question: Why are abundant resources not translating into reliable power, industrial jobs, and local value chains? For China, the answer is opportunity; for African governments, the answer must be agency.
China’s investments in Africa have ranged from oil-backed loans in Angola, more than $42 billion between 2004 and 2018, to solar installations such as the 55 MW Garissa plant in Kenya, which today supplies tens of thousands of households. Chinese firms have built ports that double as logistics hubs and potential refueling points across the Indian Ocean. China also exports technology and, increasingly, nuclear capability: Domestically it operates about 58 reactors for roughly 60.8 GW and has dozens more under construction. The Hualong One reactor, with roughly 1,150 MWe per unit, is China’s flagship export option for states seeking baseload power. That mix, hydrocarbon equity, ports, renewables, and nuclear, gives Beijing multiple channels to advance energy security while offering African partners fast finance and rapid delivery.
But delivery without domestic transformation becomes extraction by another name. When a country exports raw hydrocarbons while importing refined products and critical components, the value from resource rents evaporates abroad. Consider simple arithmetic: A barrel of crude shipped overseas returns a fraction of the wealth that a processed, refined product would yield if refining capacity and manufacturing were local. Africa’s negotiating posture is changing. Agenda 2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area, and the Africa Energy Market Place are institutional expressions of a new insistence: External partners must support local industry, skills transfer, and revenue capture, not only upstream extraction. Chinese investors who accept that will find more durable partnerships; those who do not will face growing resistance and greater political risk.
Africa in China’s Future Energy Security
By Hafed Al Ghwell
Middle East & North Africa
China’s growing dependence on imported oil and gas has made energy security a central national concern. To reduce vulnerability, Beijing has diversified through global investment, with Africa becoming a key frontier thanks to its abundant hydrocarbons and exceptional renewable potential. The continent’s paradox — vast energy resources yet millions of people without electricity — represents both opportunity for China and a test of African agency. China’s engagements span oil-backed loans, infrastructure like ports and pipelines, renewable projects such as Kenya’s Garissa solar plant, and nuclear technology exports. However, unless these ventures support local industrialization, skills, and value creation, they risk perpetuating extraction without transformation. With initiatives like Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area, African nations are demanding partnerships that prioritize local development and sustainable, equitable growth, which are conditions China must meet to secure lasting influence and reliable energy ties.
China’s energy story in the last three decades is simple and unsettling: Domestic supply has not always kept up with industrial demand. By 2023, more than 70% of China’s oil consumption and nearly half of its natural gas needs were met through imports. Roughly 80% of crude imports transit the Strait of Malacca. Those numbers, beyond abstractions, are very real structural vulnerabilities.
What should a country do when its growth depends on energy that must cross oceans through narrow chokepoints? China answered by globalizing its search for resources, building overland pipelines, investing in renewables at home, and expanding its footprint in regions rich in hydrocarbons and green potential. Africa has become central to that strategy because it offers both conventional reserves and enormous renewable opportunity — if, and this is the key question, both sides are willing to do something different than business as usual.
Africa holds roughly 125 billion barrels of proven oil (about 7.3% of the global total) and 16 trillion cubic meters of natural gas (about 7.6%). At the same time, the continent hosts solar irradiation sufficient in theory to supply far more than local demand, and single projects, like a fully developed Inga Scheme in the Congo, could produce nearly 40 gigawatts, or roughly two-thirds of Africa’s current installed capacity. Yet, more than 600 million people in Africa still lack access to electricity. Those two facts together expose an obvious moral and strategic question: Why are abundant resources not translating into reliable power, industrial jobs, and local value chains? For China, the answer is opportunity; for African governments, the answer must be agency.
China’s investments in Africa have ranged from oil-backed loans in Angola, more than $42 billion between 2004 and 2018, to solar installations such as the 55 MW Garissa plant in Kenya, which today supplies tens of thousands of households. Chinese firms have built ports that double as logistics hubs and potential refueling points across the Indian Ocean. China also exports technology and, increasingly, nuclear capability: Domestically it operates about 58 reactors for roughly 60.8 GW and has dozens more under construction. The Hualong One reactor, with roughly 1,150 MWe per unit, is China’s flagship export option for states seeking baseload power. That mix, hydrocarbon equity, ports, renewables, and nuclear, gives Beijing multiple channels to advance energy security while offering African partners fast finance and rapid delivery.
But delivery without domestic transformation becomes extraction by another name. When a country exports raw hydrocarbons while importing refined products and critical components, the value from resource rents evaporates abroad. Consider simple arithmetic: A barrel of crude shipped overseas returns a fraction of the wealth that a processed, refined product would yield if refining capacity and manufacturing were local. Africa’s negotiating posture is changing. Agenda 2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area, and the Africa Energy Market Place are institutional expressions of a new insistence: External partners must support local industry, skills transfer, and revenue capture, not only upstream extraction. Chinese investors who accept that will find more durable partnerships; those who do not will face growing resistance and greater political risk.
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