Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

A recent report titled "China's Minerals Mafia: A Global Pattern of Corruption, Environmental Destruction, and Human Rights Abuse" has smeared Chinese mining activities in Africa as "corrupt, destructive and abusive." But the report, published by the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, isn't objective. It is rather geopolitical propaganda designed to weaponize Africa's challenges to serve Western competition against China. Africans must reject this false choice. We do not have to submit to Western domination or join an anti-China bloc. Africa is neither a pawn nor a testing ground for external power games. We know the difference between genuine partnership and strategic manipulation.

No fair-minded African defends environmental damage, labor exploitation or corruption by any company, whether Chinese, Western or local. All violators must be held accountable. Africa has suffered centuries of extractive capitalism, land theft and resource plunder. However, the report deliberately obscures a historical truth: The most destructive exploitation of Africa's minerals was carried out by Western imperial powers, not China.

For more than a century, Western powers extracted gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and oil from Africa, leaving behind poverty, conflict and underdevelopment. Colonial atrocities in the Congo alone claimed millions of lives. Even today, Western firms still dominate key extractive sectors. The same governments now lecturing Africa once backed apartheid, coups, debt traps and sanctions against independent-minded states. The report's real purpose is not justice, but to contain China.

The document uses blatant double standards. It praises a US mining firm as "ethical" while labeling Chinese enterprises as a "minerals mafia." Yet the global mining industry's long record of harm comes mainly from Western-led capital. Washington's sudden "care" for Africa is not compassion - it is fear of losing control over critical mineral supply chains.

The report also insults Africans by portraying our governments as helpless victims. Africa's governance challenges are real, but they are rooted in colonial legacies, not in cooperation with China.

Many African countries chose to partner with China because Western investment was absent or came with harsh conditions. China has helped to build railways, highways, power plants, hospitals, industrial parks and telecoms projects across the continent. Projects such as the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway and Kenya's modern rail network have transformed connectivity. Afrobarometer surveys show many Africans view China positively because they see tangible development.

The real issue is an unequal global system that treats Africa primarily as a source of raw materials rather than an industrial partner. Africa's future lies in unity, stronger institutions, local beneficiation, industrialization and fair partnerships. Africa needs sovereignty, not patronage.

Africa must not become a battlefield in a new cold war. We will not serve as tools in major-country rivalry. Our resources must first benefit our own people, and our future must be decided by Africans ourselves. The choice is not between East and West. The choice is Africa.

The author is a Pan-Africanist political commentator based in Gweru, Zimbabwe. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn