Makola told us: Yannick Makola Kasonde, MMG Mining, visit to MMG Kinsevere Mine, Haut-Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2019.

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  Huayou Cobalt deemed: 2020 Environmental, Social & Governance Report (Huayou Cobalt, 2021), 4, huayou.com/Public/Uploads/uploadfile2/files/20230824/2020EnvironmentalSocialGovernanceReportHuayueNickleCobaltIndonesiaCo.,Ltd.pdf.

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  parts of Shanxi: “The New Generation of Yaodong Cave Dwellings, Loess Plateau,” World Habitat Awards 2006, world-habitat.org/world-habitat-awards/winners-and-finalists/the-new-generation-of-yaodong-cave-dwellings-loess-plateau/.

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  conditions there were abysmal: The mines in Shanxi were unsafe for much of Zhou’s youth. Official figures show that seventy-four miners were killed in an underground explosion in 2009 and more than a hundred in similar circumstances in 2007. At the time, the BBC reported that “China has the world’s deadliest mining industry.” See “Toll Climbs in China Mine Blast,” BBC, February 22, 2009, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7904122.stm.

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  province’s brick kilns: Howard W. French, “Reports of Forced Labor Unsettle China,” New York Times, June 16, 2007.

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  “They eat food for pigs”: “Urban Channel Reporters and Parents of Abducted Children Tell Their Harrowing Stories of Survival at Illegal Brick Kilns,” “都市频道记者和被拐孩子的家长讲述黑窑场历险” [Dahe], June 8, 2007, archived June 15, 2007, at web.archive.org/web/20070615154328/http://www.dahe.cn/xwzx/zt/sh/zehr/xgbd/t20070608_995613.htm.

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  When the slave labor: “Convictions in China Slave Trial,” BBC, July 17, 2007, news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6902459.stm.

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  Chinese artist in exile: Chinese artist, conversation with the author, February 2023.

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  Chapter 37: Tokyo Drift

  All Sony’s production: Jon Topham, “Sony to Move Lithium Battery Assembly Abroad: Report,” Reuters, January 21, 2012.

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  Sony’s battery division had mainly: Kana Inagaki, “Sony Sells Battery Business to Murata,” Financial Times, July 28, 2016.

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  During the relocation: Topham, “Sony to Move Lithium Battery Assembly Abroad.”

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  “Severe price competition”: Emi Emoto and Tim Kelly, “Exclusive: Banks Offer to Help Sony Offload Battery Unit—Sources,” Reuters, November 27, 2012.

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  China’s industrial heartland: Tatsuya Terazawa, “How Japan Solved Its Rare Earth Minerals Dependency Issue,” World Economic Forum, October 13, 2023, weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/japan-rare-earth-minerals/#:~:text=On%207%20September%202010%2C%20a,rare%20earth%20minerals%20to%20Japan.

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  Prices for rare: Yen Nee Lee, “A Massive, ‘Semi-Infinite’ Trove of Rare-Earth Metals Has Been Found in Japan,” CNBC, April 12, 2018, cnbc.com/2018/04/12/japan-rare-earths-huge-deposit-of-metals-found-in-pacific.html.

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  “It is critically important”: “Japan Loosens China’s Grip on Rare Earths Supplies,” Reuters, September 4, 2014.

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  dependency on Chinese rare: Yen, “A Massive, ‘Semi-Infinite’ Trove of Rare-Earth Metals Has Been Found in Japan.”

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  “rare metals war”: Guillaume Pitron, La guerre des métaux rares, nouvelle ed. (Les Liens qui Libèrent, 2023).

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  “Batteries were never”: Pitron, La guerre des métaux rares.

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  focus on gaming: Leo Lewis et al., “Sony and Honda Plan Electric Vehicle Tie-Up to Take on Tesla,” Financial Times, March 4, 2022. The Financial Times’ Kana Inagaki mused that by forming the joint venture, Sony also hoped to win over Tesla to adopt its image sensors. See Kana Inagaki, “Why Sony Wants to Win Over Tesla Despite Honda Tie-Up,” Financial Times, October 25, 2022.

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  This executive told me: Robin Harding would later argue the same point in the Financial Times a few months later. Battery technology has “advanced at a slow, linear pace. Batteries are a matter of chemistry. You cannot just make them smaller, like a transistor.” See Robin Harding, “Beware the Great Battery Fallacy,” Financial Times, February 2, 2023.

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  leapfrogged the goal: Kevin Clemens, “CATL Condensed Battery Could Make Electric Aviation Possible,” EEPower, April 27, 2023, eepower.com/market-insights/catl-condensed-battery-could-make-electric-aviation-possible/#.

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  Chapter 38: No Guts, No Glory

  Humans have mined: A feasibility study from 2007 says that, on the TFM site, “archaeological evidence indicates that mining occurred over two hundred thousand years ago and that smelting of copper was practiced on the concession several thousand years before present.” Environmental and Social Impact Assessment: Executive Summary, Submitted to Tenke Fungurume Mining S.A.R.L. (TFM), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Golder Associates, March 2007), 2.

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  “boast cobalt concentrations”: Ryan C. Rosenfels and Bjorn P. von der Heyden, “A Critical Comparison Between the Fungurume 8 and 88 Cu-Co Deposits, Central African Copperbelt,” Ore Geology Reviews 140 (January 2022): 1. The study in which this remark is made also notes that there are probably many more undiscovered supplies within the bend in the Lufilian Arc upon which Fungurume sits. The authors suggest “vast exploration potential for similar deeperwater sub-basins which may host significant, and yet-undiscovered metal (notably Co) resources.”

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  Union Minière knew: “Environmental and Social Impact Assessment: Executive Summary, Submitted to Tenke Fungurume Mining S.A.R.L. (TFM), Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Golder Associates, March 2007, 2.

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  Tempelsman hired Larry: Jeff Gerth, “Former Intelligence Aides Profiting from Old Ties,” New York Times, December 6, 1981.

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  spent $250 million: Robert Eriksson, Adolf H. Lundin: No Guts No Glory (Ehrenblad Editions, 2003), 216–17.

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  The truth was: A State Affair: Privatizing Congo’s Copper Sector (Carter Center, November 2017), 9, cartercenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/congo-report-carter-center-nov-2017.pdf.

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  told the Swede to: Eriksson, No Guts No Glory, 227.

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  “A lot of analysts”: Petter Bolme, interview with the author, May 2024.

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  “with a big ego”: Eriksson, No Guts No Glory, 9.

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  The hard-charging attitude: The trial was ongoing as I wrote this, and the Lundin executives denied responsibility for the killings. See Anne-Françoise Hivert, “Swedish Oil Executives Face Landmark Trial for Alleged Complicity in Sudanese War Crimes,” Le Monde, September 5, 2023.

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  Lundin would recall: Lundin, who died of leukemia in 2006, might have been telling a lie, but it may also have been true that Mobutu, drawn into the vortex of civil war, never did get around to asking Lundin for money. “Unlike some other mining companies, Lundin Mining still does not have any general prohibition against contributions to political parties, election campaigns or candidates,” the authors of a Swedish NGO report wrote. See Raf Custers and Sara Nordbrand, Risky Business: The Lundin Group’s Involvement in the Tenke Fungurume Mining Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (International Peace Information Service, Swedwatch, and Diakonia, February 2008), 3.

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  Gécamines and Congolese officials: Custers and Nordbrand, Risky Business, 17.

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  “President Kabila, because of us”: Barnabé Kikaya Bin Karubi, interview with the author, June 2025.

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  a “backroom deal”: “AXS TV, Dan Rather Reports, ‘All Mine’ Full Episode,” posted September 23, 2008, by Dan Rather Reports, YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=PzkmX2ROL0k.

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  the Arizona-based minerals: Steve James, “Phelps Dodge to Proceed with Congo Copper Mine,” Reuters, August 9, 2007.

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  acquired Phelps Dodge: James, “Freeport Acquires Phelps Dodge, Launches Offering.”

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  “the common perception”: City of New York, Office of the Comptroller, “27th February 2003,” letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as cited in Paying for Protection: The Freeport Mine and the Indonesian Security Forces (Global Witness, 2005).

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  Allegations abounded that: Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrère & Denègre LLP, letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 3 March 2003, as cited in Paying for Protection: The Freeport Mine and the Indonesian Security Forces (Global Witness, 2005). (At the time, lawyers for Freeport said that such claims were “irrelevant and false.”)

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  “unsuitable for aquatic life”: Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, “Below a Mountain of Wealth, a River of Waste,” New York Times, December 27, 2005.

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  Norway’s sovereign wealth: Christopher Eaton, “James ‘Jim Bob’ Moffett, Who Helped Build Freeport-McMoRan, Dies at 82,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2021.

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  Rather framed the displacement: “AXS TV, Dan Rather Reports, ‘All Mine’ Full Episode.”

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  “This land is not fertile”: Custers and Nordbrand, Risky Business, 43.

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  built ninety-one wells: “An Investment in the Future of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Tenke Fungurume Mining, 2013.

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  They were prosecuted: Joe Bavier, “DRC Holds Freeport Staff in Alleged Visa Scam,” Reuters, August 15, 2009.

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  “The stinkin’ government”: Melissa Sanderson, interview with the author, August 23, 2023.

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  Freeport agreed to pay: Joe Bavier, “Freeport to Pay $16 Million in DRC Visa Settlement,” Reuters, August 17, 2009.

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  “action by a foreign official”: Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq. (“FCPA”).

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  “huge pallets of cash”: Mining official, interview with the author, March 2022.

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  uneasy about the risks: Source close to Freeport-McMoRan’s board, interview with the author.

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  dig as they might: Eaton, “James ‘Jim Bob’ Moffett.”

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  examine what assets: James Wilson, “BHP to Expand Copper and Oil Exploration Despite Weak Prices,” Financial Times, May 10, 2016.

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  found a buyer in China: Dionne Searcey et al., “A Power Struggle Over Cobalt Rattles the Clean Energy Revolution,” New York Times, November 20, 2021.

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  “It breaks my heart”: Wilson, “BHP to Expand Copper and Oil Exploration Despite Weak Prices.”

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  Congolese politicians tried: Searcey et al., “A Power Struggle Over Cobalt Rattles the Clean Energy Revolution.”

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  China Molybdenum was certainly: “The Backchannel: State Capture and Bribery in Congo’s Deal of the Century,” The Sentry, November 2021, https://thesentry.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TheBackchannel-TheSentry-Nov2021.pdf.

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  took 51 percent of the Grasberg: Wilda Asmarini and Bernadette Christina Munthe, “Freeport, Rio Sell Majority Stake in Grasberg Mine to Indonesia,” Reuters, September 27, 2018, reuters.com/article/indonesia-freeport-rio-tinto/update-3-freeport-rio-sell-majority-stake-in-grasberg-mine-to-indonesia-idUSL4N1WD1L8.

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  Chapter 39: Tying Up the Supply

  Glencore doesn’t publish: “Glencore Congo Copper Mine Hit with $894 Million Royalty Row,” Bloomberg, September 27, 2024.

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  a whopping 68 percent: The Road to Ruin?: Electric Vehicles and Workers’ Rights Abuses at DR Congo’s Industrial Cobalt Mines (Rights and Accountability in Development, November 2021), 26, raid-uk.org/post-library/the-road-to-ruin-electric-vehicles-and-workers-rights-abuses-at-dr-congos-industrial-cobalt-mines/.

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  KCC maintenance engineers: Hereward Holland, “Glencore’s KCC Mine in Congo Had Acid Spill on March 16,” Reuters, April 6, 2021.

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  “make a contribution”: Beneath the Green (Rights and Accountability in Development, March 2024), 77, raid-uk.org/post-library/report-beneath-the-green/.

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  “failed to ensure adequate management”: Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Switzerland, “Office of the Attorney General Closes Its Criminal Investigation Against Glencore International AG with a Summary Penalty Order and an Abandonment Order,” News Service Bund, August 4, 2024, https://www.news.admin.ch/en/nsb?id=101995.

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  Another criticism leveled: Out of Africa: British Offshore Secrecy and Congo’s Missing $1.5 Billion (Global Witness, May 2016), globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/out-of-africa/.

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  “Glencore has made loans”: Glencore, “Response to Global Witness,” May 2, 2012, media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/files/documents/Glencore_response_to_Global_witness_2012.pdf.

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  “the mining giant gets”: Glencore and the Gatekeeper (Global Witness, May 2014), 10, globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/glencore-and-the-gatekeeper/.

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  Former Glencore officials with whom: Glencore official, interview with the author, March 2022; Glencore official, interview with the author, June 2022; and Glencore official, interview with the author, July 2019.

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  for $922 million: “Glencore Purchases Stakes in Mutanda and Katanga,” Glencore, February 13, 2017, glencore.com/media-and-insights/news/glencore-purchases-stakes-in-mutanda-and-katanga.

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  “worth of opaque”: U.S. Department of the Treasury, “United States Sanctions Human Rights Abusers and Corrupt Actors Across the Globe,” press release, December 21, 2017, home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243.

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  $28 million in 2018: Barbara Lesi, “Glencore Settles with Gertler over Congo Royalties,” Reuters, June 15, 2018.

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  almost $3 billion: Lesi, “Glencore Settles with Gertler Over Congo Royalties”; and “Settlement of Dispute with Ventora and Africa Horizons,” Glencore, June 15, 2018, archived May 24, 2024, at web.archive.org/web/20240524183659/https://www.glencore.com/media-and-insights/news/Settlement-of-dispute-with-Ventora-and-Africa-horizons.

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  “pay the relevant royalties”: “Settlement of Dispute with Ventora and Africa Horizons.”

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