Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Zambia focuses on Reviving a Cold War Era Railway to help Mineral Access.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang will start a two-day visit to the southern African nation of Zambia on Wednesday that will focus on the $1.4 billion refurbishment of a Cold War-era railway line to further improve China’s access to critical minerals.

China has heavily invested in mining in Zambia, which is one of the world’s top producers of copper that is integral to the production of electronic devices. Besides, building the airport at Lusaka, Zambia, China has also commissioned a 60,000-seat stadium in Lusaka, plus roads and bridges around the country. Zambia is on the hook for all of the development with billions of dollars in debt. Tanzania is a major trading partner with China, and it has a new political leadership school funded by the Chinese Communist Party.

Li, who holds China’s No. 2 leadership position after President Xi Jinping, will meet with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema on Thursday, Hichilema said in a statement. The two countries will sign documents to start the upgrade of the Tazara railway line linking Zambia’s mines to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam on Africa’s east coast.

China, Zambia and Tanzania signed a deal in September, 2025 giving the state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation concessions to carry out the upgrade. The Tazara rail line was built by the three countries in the 1970s from landlocked Zambia to Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port, allowing copper exports to circumvent white-minority-ruled Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, and   to avoid relying on transport links through what was then Rhodesia and South Africa, which were under white minority governments.

The railway has taken on renewed significance for China after a United States-backed project to build a railway from Zambia and neighbouring Congo out to Africa’s Atlantic Ocean coast in Angola gained momentum last year when former U.S. President Joe Biden visited part of that project.

The two railways, one going west and the other going east, represent competition between the U.S. and China for access to the critical minerals that are also key for renewable energy technology, electric car batteries and defence systems.

China is the dominant player in mining in Zambia and Congo and leads the global race for critical minerals. President Donald Trump has moved to increase U.S. supply chains in a bid to counter its economic rival.

Li is visiting Zambia on the way to South Africa for this weekend’s Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg, the first to be held in Africa. The U.S. is boycotting the summit over Trump’s criticism of the South African government.

Earlier in the beginning of this month, the Trump administration had strived with certain private investors namely two rare earth startups in a $1.4 billion deal to scale up the nation’s access to materials and technology that is crucial for producing an array of high-tech goods and military equipment.

The investment in Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies is the latest stake taken by the U.S. in a handful of private companies — including another rare earths company and chipmaker Intel, since President Donald Trump began his second term in January. The White House has made it a priority to bolster the nation’s supply chain in a market dominated by China.

Vulcan Elements manufactures rare earth magnets, while ReElement processes rare earth mineral ores and recycles old batteries and other products made with rare earths.

Rare earths are used in fighter jets, guided missiles, drones and nuclear submarines as well as smartphones and wind turbines.

Team Maverick