Six Decades Later, Zambians Ask, “Were Chinese Mining Infrastructure Investments Worth It?”
- Kang-Chun Cheng
- Apr 30
- 11 min read
Updated: May 2
Maintaining a mutually beneficial but delicate resource extraction relationship requires navigating longstanding suspicions. Not even our Editor-at-Large could find herself above the fray.
Less than five years ago, less existed in Serenje than what meets the eye today, which still isn’t much.
The town comprises a couple of rows of shops and homes, the no-frills architecture exuding its utilitarian purposes. It’s a place born to facilitate mineral mining, and will likely fade away when that mission is complete. Contractors, presumably working in mining, crowd Villa Mbanandi Lodge — the one decent hotel in town — drinking beers and eating plates of chicken and fries. My reporting partner and I stayed at this lodge, established a few years ago to accommodate the flurry of business that has followed one of Zambia’s many up-and-coming mining regions.
It is difficult to keep track of how many towns like Serenje have cropped up across the landlocked, sub-Saharan country. As the second biggest copper producer on the African continent, Zambia’s history with mining dates back nearly a century. But the spike in the industry's expansion is recent. The National Mineral Resources Development Policy of 2022, along with the Eighth National Development Plan, indicates the government’s pledge to spur the sector’s growth and investments. It’s an ambitious plan, ramping up copper production from the current 800,000 tons each year to 3 million metric tons by 2031.
Mining constituted more than 70% of Zambian foreign exchange earnings in 2021, and 72% of total Zambian exports in 2022. Besides copper, several cornerstone minerals comprise Zambia’s extractive industry, such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, uranium, diamonds, and coal — mining accounts for 17.5% of the nation’s GDP. In 2023, Zambia exported $6.95 billion in raw copper, the largest such exporter in the world, even though it is the tenth biggest copper producer.
Copper plays a critical role in both wind and solar power and the increasing popularity of electric vehicles. On average, copper is used five times more in renewable energy technologies than in fossil fuel and nuclear plants due to the mineral’s reliability, electrical and thermal conductivity, and efficiency.
For instance, a 3-megawatt wind turbine contains up to 4.7 tons of copper. The same metal forms the heart of electric vehicles, constituting the motor coil that drives the engine — the more electric the car, the more copper it needs. A car with an internal combustion engine contains roughly 22 kilograms of copper, while a battery electric vehicle uses nearly quadruple that — 84 kilograms.
Serenje is not even located in the actual Copperbelt, which extends from northern Zambia to the southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo; it lies in Zambia’s Central Province at the heart of the nation. My reporting partner and I had traveled to Serenje by rail, beginning from the coastal city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, at the start of the rainy season this past February. The Tazara (Tanzania-Zambia-Railway) was constructed half a century ago, between 1970 and 1975, as a joint project shared by the presidents of the two countries, Kenneth Kaunda and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.
During that era of African independence from loitering Western powers, this project was a bid to gain regional economic agency. This 1,852-kilometer-long railway, they argued, would help expand their respective nations’ agricultural prowess and export capabilities, shuttling crucial mineral resources and passengers to the Indian Ocean, bypassing apartheid South Africa and colonially administered Rhodesia (which gained independence and changed its name to Zimbabwe in 1980).
The project was spurned by international institutions such as the World Bank and United Nations, who cited its weak economic justification — plus a thinly veiled fear that such infrastructure would impede their own financial interests — forcing the two heads of state to turn to China. Under Mao Zedong’s leadership, an agreement for the construction of the Tazara was signed between the three countries in Beijing in 1967. China granted an interest-free loan of $400 million dollars — worth $3.29 billion in today’s money — its largest foreign aid project at the time.
Greyish mud coats most surfaces from the moment the skies open up; Serenje brings a mood to match the weather. Driving toward Kabundi Village, the site of a smattering of small-scale artisanal mines powered by informal laborers, the sludgy mud causes the wheels of our Prado to squeal and spin.
According to local lore, Kabundi’s amalgamation of mines — difficult to take stock of considering how informal many are — sprung up under the prowess of one local lady’s entrepreneurial spirit. She opened up the first mine, extracting copper, manganese, and nickel in 2020. Her entrepreneurship was a near-literal portal for the village. As the community, which consists mostly of subsistence farmers growing soybeans and maize, realized the depth of the riches that lay beneath the surface, others followed her lead. It didn’t take long for more-connected entities to catch wind of Kabundi’s potential.
One mine that we visited in Kabundi, like many others, lacked a name. “Why would you name a mine you’re leaving in two weeks?” someone commented. Such a mine averages 100 to 120 workers, nearly all hailing from the community or neighboring regions. There is rarely a need for formal recruitment of miners; youth are quick to rush to the few available opportunities.
At the edge of the pit, overlooking the terracotta-colored layers of the mine, things were quiet. Activities had died down in the wake of the Lunar New Year, a hiatus compounded by the onset of the long rains. As we approached another nameless mine, we were greeted by Chen Ming, a Chinese manager dressed in a fluffy pajama set to stave off the chilly weather. I was relieved that he was talkative and friendly, willing to share his story of how he came to live and work here, thousands of miles away from his family. A gracious host, he gave us water and Fuji apples, and offered to cook us noodles.
At 56, Ming left his home in China’s eastern coastal Jiangsu province. He took early retirement from his career as a civil servant, following his brother, who was already working in the mining industry — a move born out of a mix of familial duties and curiosity beyond the mainland.
This isn’t the easiest place to live, he tells me, as we look over the facilities where he has worked since last July — at the excavator, drill rig, and the new generator they are in the process of installing. Ming doesn’t speak much English and has a Zambian translator who studied in China to help him liaise with employees. He prefers to cook his own meals so they are closer to the palate that he’s used to, although the selection of produce and goods here is a fraction of what Jiangsu has to offer.
But it is not in Ming’s nature to complain about such discomfort. Sacrifices are an expected part of life; this loneliness is part of his journey. I told him about our Tazara journey — how next year is the train’s 50th birthday. He brightened at the mention of China’s history here. “It extends so far back,” he says. “Zambia has a deeper history with China than most other African countries. We helped build a lot of the roads and bridges, the airport.”
In October 1964, Zambia established diplomatic relations with China — the first country in southern Africa to do so. Kaunda visited China four times during his presidency, dubbing it “a reliable all-weather friend,” setting a precedent for consistent high-level exchanges. “China is like our second cousin,” our guide in Zambia told us as he drove. “We hate you! But get on over here.”
Zambia has been the third-largest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment on the continent: in March alone, the Tazara authority secured a $1.4 billion investment from the state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation to rehabilitate railway tracks and procure new trains, in exchange for a 30-year concession.
Yet relations have been far from smooth, with highly publicized and critiqued incidents including an explosion at an explosives factory in 2005 that killed 50 workers, and volatile and violent reactions to protesting local mine workers. In 2011, Human Rights Watch published a report that investigated labor law and human rights violations within Chinese-owned mines, such as 18-hour shifts and anti-union activities that flout both Zambian national laws and international standards.
Yatuta Mukwende Sikazwe, a governance advisor at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Zambia’s capital city of Lusaka, determined in his political science master’s thesis published in 2012 that framing labor issues in the nation’s Chinese mines purely as a “Chinese” issue was problematic. Zambian regulatory institutions, according to his research, play a role in limiting the government’s ability to address labor standards and protection shortcomings for mineworkers in Chinese and other foreign mines. Furthermore, he determined that such problems extend beyond Chinese-owned mines, making this narrative of a “Chinese problem” inaccurate and unfair.
Chinese investments were one of the most debated issues between 2006 and 2011, and Sikazwe’s research aims to push back on this convenient, neocolonialist sentiment about China’s involvement in Zambia that has been proliferated by Zambian media and Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front Party, the country’s fifth president. While the nation has the highest number of Chinese lenders of all African countries, with China owning 69% of the construction industry, Chinese debt only made up 17.6% of total external debt payments in 2022.
“The shift from nationally to privately owned mines and related processes of economic restructuring has reduced the monitoring and enforcement capabilities of the government,” he writes. Fixating on incidents and conditions of Chinese mines “obscures a more comprehensive analysis of the issues faced by workers throughout the mining industry, and thus shapes, or limits, policy responses.”
Upon the establishment of the Zambia Privatization Act in 1992 to revitalize a weak economy, three-quarters of state-owned enterprises became privately owned, following the classical economic theories claiming that the private sector is more efficient than the public.
But according to Kaite McBride, a public administration specialist whose master's thesis at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management focused on the impact of privatization on Zambia, policy failures and irregularities troubled this process. Many mines in the Copperbelt Province were sold to foreign investors who negotiated very low prices and obtained concessions that ate into government tax collection budgets. The government failed to implement safety nets for civilians who would not personally benefit from privatization.
Although media perception of Chinese influence in Zambia may skew negatively, for years, studies such as Afrobarometer — a pan-African, independent research network that gauges public attitudes — have shown that civilians construe Chinese economic and political influence in a positive light.
Jeremy Weate, a senior adviser at the Tony Blair Institute, believes that despite China’s lackluster public relations management, it has been winning the influence battle over the U.S. in Zambia, particularly over recent years.
Companies carrying out mining ventures in Zambia are charged a 30% corporate income tax — ”unconscionably high for western investors and wards them off,” says Weate — but more palatable in a Chinese investment context.
“This has been a shock to the system for U.S. commercial dips [over the past two years],” he continues. “[The Americans] are used to corraling influence.
Meanwhile, the Chinese way is being relationship-oriented. “Senior mining officials in Zambia — as elsewhere — are flown to China often,” Weate explains. “I know from a Nigerian friend what the experience is like. Whatever you have an interest or desire for, is supplied on the trips. It makes the western counter seem pale and lifeless.”
On Google Earth, excavation efforts in the Copperbelt look like a rupturing scar, running northwest toward the Congo. Mine access would be foundational to our reporting, providing crucial visuals about the expanding scale of Zambia’s mining industry. I was curious how the fresh developments to the American political landscape would influence mining operations in Zambia — whether Trump’s unpredictable whims would palpably influence the Chinese competition factor, here at the heart of an industry that powers the world.
Much of working as a journalist, particularly when one is taking photos, revolves around securing access. The process behind obtaining the right contacts and formulating fieldwork plans can be far more demanding than the act of photography itself. Yet I had completely underestimated how impermeable access to the Copperbelt would be, even as a journalist.
During the months of preparation that led up to this reporting, I did not factor in the possibility of failing to enter — and photograph — a large-scale, open pit mine. After all, I had managed to get access to gold mines in Kenya, and coal shafts and factories in southern Tanzania without inordinate hassle. The fixer we had hired through the journalist network in Nairobi seemed more professional than most of the guides I have worked with. He and his producing partner were both suave and efficient; neither of them indicated pressing concerns about access. I had little reason to worry.
But two days into our time in the Copperbelt, it became apparent that this would be vastly different from my other reporting experiences, where patience and on-the-fly problem-solving have tended to do the trick. A couple of weeks prior to our arrival in Zambia, a tailing dam for a wastewater holding tank at Konkola Copper Mines (one of the biggest mines in the country) broke due to poor quality control, releasing an estimated 50 million liters of highly toxic and acidic waste into the Kafue River. Besides poisoning the river, the accident shut down water supplies for the mining town of Kitwe for more than a week. Furthermore, our fixer seemed to have more experience working in the broader media landscape, rather than journalism.
This amplified the inherent caginess of those working in the extractive industry — everyone assumed we were there to cover the accident.
My physical identity as an Asian made everything worse. Zambians defaulted to believing I was there on a very different kind of mission. It’s not an exaggeration to say some assumed I was an “economic saboteur.” (How that works, I have no idea.) Our fixer would seemingly negotiate a fee for accessing the mines, but upon stepping out of the car, mine owners or managers would backtrack on the spot, tripling the fee. “It’s because you look Chinese,” the fixer explained.
My parents are from Taiwan, but I was born and raised in the U.S. and am an American passport holder. Not that it mattered. In these situations, there is nothing one can do to reshape rooted perceptions.
I have to admit that at some point I was tempted to go along with our guide’s suggestion of posing to be mine investors rather than journalists, for the sake of access, which I’m glad my reporting partner talked me out of.
We tried going to upwards of six different mines and were stonewalled at all of them. Pouring sheets of rain washed away our final chance to access a mine on our last night in the Copperbelt; the morning after the downpour, no one showed up to work. Furthermore, the minister of mining had arrived at Ndola, the capital of the Copperbelt Province and its industrial hub, heightening the edge that everyone was already on.
Even between ourselves, there were several communication problems. At one point, our fixer asked for my camera. I handed one over, and he jogged away without another word. I turned to my reporting partner and asked him, “He’s not going to take photos for me, is he?” “For sure not,” he replied. But I have never come close to a situation like that before.
A few minutes later, the fixer returned, panting from his jog, asking me to check my camera. I had to explain — that is not how photojournalism works. Later on, in a last-ditch effort, the fixer was calling yet another lead: “We’re looking to get access into a mine, to see the operations. And KC has to be the one taking the photos,” he says over the phone. It felt strange hearing it said out loud like that, but that is how things work.
This was a good lesson for me, to practice acceptance. As I expand the scope of what I cover, there will be challenges that simply cannot be reconciled in such limited timeframes. That you won’t always get the access you need. That weather and politics remain out of one’s control, and not every reporting partner will match your commitment to the project. But you live, and hopefully learn, and continue looking onwards, crossing your fingers for a better alignment of the stars in the future.
Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Paul Stremple and Theresa Ndovie contributed reporting to the story.
