Sudan’s China Copper Deal: How SAF and the Muslim Brotherhood Are Mortgaging the Country’s Future

By Rouchan Bouzo

AI-generated image of Sudan, China, and a disputed copper deal.

Sudan is being asked to surrender control over a strategic copper resource for 30 years while receiving just $50 million in symbolic debt relief from China. No elected parliament approved the arrangement. No public consultation was held. The full contract has not even been released.

Sudan’s SAF-led authorities want the world to view the debt cancellation and the copper concession as separate agreements. To many Sudanese, however, they form one disturbing picture: an unelected wartime government is using the country’s natural resources to purchase foreign support and the appearance of legitimacy.

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, Sudan’s military authorities have agreed to grant a Chinese company exclusive rights over a major copper concession in Red Sea State. The arrangement has provoked anger across eastern Sudan and the diaspora—and revived the central question surrounding General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s rule:

What right does a government with no democratic mandate have to bind Sudan to a 30-year agreement?

A 30-Year Sudan-China Copper Deal

Sudan’s minerals minister, Nouraldaim Mohamed Ahmed Taha, traveled to Beijing to finalize the agreement, according to the Eastern Sudan Advisory Council. The council says the deal grants a Chinese company copper exploration rights in Red Sea State for 30 years while leaving Sudan with only 30% of the profits.

Even that share may not remain in Sudan. The council alleges that outstanding Chinese debts would be deducted from Sudan’s future extraction revenue. The reported value of the concession has been placed at approximately $300 million.

The complete terms have not been published, and neither Beijing nor Sudan’s authorities have officially confirmed every element of the agreement. Public reporting describes an exploration concession, while sources familiar with the negotiations say its practical effect would be to give the Chinese company exclusive control over the project.

That secrecy is not a minor procedural problem. It is the heart of the controversy. Sudanese citizens are being asked to accept a generational commitment without knowing the concession’s boundaries, environmental consequences, tax structure or debt-repayment provisions.

$50 Million in Debt Relief for Sudan’s Copper

On June 28, China cancelled four interest-free loans to Sudan worth approximately $50 million. The announcement was presented as evidence of Beijing’s generosity. In reality, the amount represents less than 1% of the approximately $6.4 billion Sudan reportedly owes China. It is also insignificant compared with Sudan’s total external debt, which stood at $66.8 billion at the end of 2023.

The publicly released debt protocol does not explicitly state that the loans were cancelled in exchange for the copper concession. That distinction matters legally. Politically, however, the two developments cannot be viewed in isolation.

China is forgiving a negligible portion of Sudan’s debt while positioning itself to gain long-term access to one of the country’s strategic mineral resources. The documents may be separate, but the balance of advantage is unmistakable.

Cameron Hudson, an independent Africa analyst and former U.S. intelligence official, told Al-Monitor that the contrast favors Beijing. Sudan receives limited financial relief. China gains potential access to a valuable copper project and a stronger position in the country’s postwar economy.

Al-Burhan receives something else: political recognition. For a government struggling to portray itself as Sudan’s sole legitimate authority, every Chinese agreement can be displayed as a foreign vote of confidence. Beijing’s signatures help provide the appearance of statehood that the SAF cannot obtain from Sudanese voters.

Eastern Sudan Rejects the China Copper Deal

The backlash has been immediate. The Eastern Sudan Advisory Council and the Beja Congress issued separate statements demanding that all agreements involving the region’s mineral wealth be suspended until the war ends and a comprehensive peace settlement is reached.

Their objection is not simply that Sudan may be receiving a bad price. It is that the officials negotiating the agreement have no mandate to make it. The council argued that no long-term contract involving Sudan’s sovereign resources should be concluded without legislative oversight, elected state institutions or consultation with traditional leaders and local communities. It also demanded transparent environmental, economic and social-impact assessments. Eastern Sudan has already experienced the destructive side of resource extraction. Gold leaves the region, while local communities are left with pollution, disease and little meaningful development.

A secretive copper agreement risks repeating that model on a much larger scale: the resource goes abroad, the profits flow toward Khartoum and foreign investors, and eastern Sudan inherits the environmental damage.

Researcher Abu Fatima Onour compared the controversy with the prewar Abu Amama port project. In both cases, Sudanese authorities moved to make far-reaching commitments involving national assets during periods of political instability. The message from eastern Sudan is straightforward: The country’s weakness is not permission to sell its future.

China Expands Its Hold Over Sudan’s Resources

The Sudan-China copper deal is not an isolated commercial transaction. It is part of a much wider expansion of Chinese influence over Sudan’s ports, oil, gold and mineral wealth. The Chinese company involved in public reporting about the copper concession has not officially been identified. Sources familiar with the negotiations, however, point to Norinco-linked interests.

Norin Mining is already expanding its position in Sudan’s gold sector. In December 2025, Morocco’s Managem announced an agreement to sell Norin Mining another 45% of the joint venture that indirectly owns the Gabgaba–Block 15 gold project. If completed, the $420 million transaction would raise Norin Mining’s holding to 80%.

Norinco and other Chinese manufacturers were also major suppliers to Bashir-era Sudan’s military-industrial system. Sudan locally produced weapons based on Chinese designs, embedding Chinese technology inside the security apparatus that survived Bashir’s fall. More recently, Norinco-manufactured weapons have appeared in the current war. Amnesty International documented Chinese guided bombs and howitzers used by the RSF, although it concluded that those particular weapons were almost certainly re-exported by the United Arab Emirates rather than delivered directly by Beijing.

The distinction is important: the appearance of Chinese weapons does not prove that Beijing is directly arming both sides. It does, however, demonstrate the extraordinary reach of China’s defense industry across Sudan’s military ecosystem. Oil. Weapons. Ports. Gold. Debt relief. Now copper.

China is not merely investing in Sudan. It is securing a position across the sectors that will determine who controls Sudan’s economy after the war.

Beijing Moves Into Sudan’s Red Sea Ports

Sudan’s Sea Ports Corporation recently signed a memorandum with the state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company to rehabilitate port infrastructure and potentially construct new seaports. Sudanese officials have also held meetings with the China-Africa Development Fund, China National Petroleum Corporation and Chinese Communist Party representatives. They have appeared at Belt and Road and Global Development Initiative forums while seeking money to sustain and reconstruct an economy devastated by war.

Beijing presents this engagement as development without political interference. But China’s supposed neutrality carries its own political consequences. By signing long-term agreements with al-Burhan’s authorities, Beijing strengthens their claim to represent Sudan even though they have never received a mandate from its people.

China’s advantage is precisely Sudan’s weakness. A stable, elected government with functioning institutions could subject these agreements to parliamentary review, competitive bidding and public scrutiny. A wartime authority desperate for money and recognition is far easier to negotiate with.

SAF and the Muslim Brotherhood Trade Resources for Legitimacy

For al-Burhan and the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned officials running his government, Chinese engagement provides something the military cannot manufacture at gunpoint: the appearance of a functioning, internationally recognized state. Every foreign contract becomes political theater. Every visiting delegation is portrayed as recognition. Every Chinese investment helps transform an unelected wartime administration into something that appears permanent.

But foreign signatures cannot replace domestic legitimacy. To the communities whose land contains the copper, this does not look like reconstruction. It looks like a de facto authority using Sudan’s resources to finance its survival and strengthen its claim to power.

Sudan desperately needs investment. It will eventually need massive international assistance to rebuild its cities, industries and infrastructure. But reconstruction cannot become an excuse for secrecy, corruption or the transfer of strategic resources without public consent.

The authorities should publish the copper contract, identify the Chinese company, disclose the concession’s geographic scope and explain how profits, taxes and debt deductions will be calculated. They should also submit the agreement to genuine environmental review and consultation with eastern Sudanese communities.

Until then, the Sudan-China copper deal will look less like an investment in Sudan’s future than a transaction conducted at that future’s expense. The SAF and its Muslim Brotherhood allies are not merely borrowing money. They are borrowing legitimacy—and offering Sudan’s copper as collateral.

Roushan Bouzo is a Syrian journalist and political analyst based in the United States, specializing in Middle Eastern affairs, conflict, and international relations.