I find this an interesting move from China overall:

TOKYO -- While China-Australia relations seem to be thawing, Beijing is slowly but surely moving to cut its dependence on Australian iron ore.
Last Friday, mining giant Rio Tinto and a consortium of Chinese state-owned enterprises announced that they had concluded key agreements with the government of Guinea to build a trans-Guinean railway capable of carrying iron ore from the west African nation's inland to the coast.
Over 600 kilometers of rail together with port facilities will "unlock" the potential of the Simandou mountain range, "the world's largest known undeveloped supply of high-grade, low-impurity iron ore," said Bold Baatar, the Rio Tinto executive committee's lead for Guinea and copper, in a press release.
Rather than cutting through nearby Liberia or Sierra Leone, the plan is to travel through Guinea, which has a tradition of being independent and friendly to China. That means snaking through mountainous Guinean terrain to a deep sea port that will also be built. The plan envisions the construction of 235 bridges, while the longest tunnel will be over 11 km.

archive.is/RbjXH