Tim Zajontz, a lecturer in global political economy at the University of Freiburg, said that while the Chinese consortium would commit to investing in Tazara’s troubled infrastructure and inadequate rolling stock, it was not an aid mission.
“The Chinese investors have made it unequivocally clear in previous negotiations that Tazara is no longer considered an aid project, but must be a commercially viable business,” said Zajontz, who is also a researcher at the Center for International and Comparative Politics at Stellenbosch University.
Aly-Khan Satchu, a sub-Saharan Africa geoeconomic analyst, said the Tanzanian and Zambian governments appeared to be looking for a major revamp of the railway and were happy to hand over the operation of the line to the private sector.
“So I expect this to be a renewal, to serve as the concessionaire for a significant period of time,” Satchu said.
He also noted Xi’s keen interest in Tazara’s renovation.
“This railway is a symbol of Sino-African history, and President Xi understands the power of storytelling,” Satchu said.
Xi had promised to renovate the railway when her Tanzanian counterpart Samia Suluhu Hassan visited China last year and during the visit of Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema in September.
The West is struggling to challenge China’s dominance of the African mineral market
The West is struggling to challenge China’s dominance of the African mineral market
“China is willing to support the upgrading and transformation of the Tanzania-Zambia railway in accordance with the principles of commercialization and commercialization,” Xi said when he met Hichilema.
Tazara is part of the DNA of Sino-African relations, often used to emphasize that China’s relations with Africa are based on equality, solidarity and anti-imperialism, said Zajontz, whose upcoming book, The Political Economy of China’s Infrastructure Development in Africacovers the case of the planned privatization of Tazara.
“Despite official rhetoric, Beijing also has strong geo-economic interests in restoring Tazara, which would improve the efficiency of the Dar es Salaam corridor, particularly for mining exports from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
When China’s involvement in the Tazara railway began in the 1970s under Mao, the country was facing its own economic difficulties.
Meanwhile, Zambia was desperate for a rail link to the Tanzanian coast for its main export, copper. Neighboring white-controlled Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe – had cut off Zambia’s only route to the sea in response to the transfer of power to a black majority.
The United States and Russia both refused to finance a new railway, so China stepped in, building Tazara for about a billion yuan, or billions of US dollars in today’s prices.
![The entrance to the Tazara Memorial Park in Zambia’s Lusaka province, built in honour of Chinese nationals who died during the construction of the railway line in the 1970s. Photo: Xinhua](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2023/11/10/125f4927-c711-4df6-87b9-6027144595ab_52519f63.jpg)
![The entrance to the Tazara Memorial Park in Zambia’s Lusaka province, built in honour of Chinese nationals who died during the construction of the railway line in the 1970s. Photo: Xinhua](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2023/11/10/125f4927-c711-4df6-87b9-6027144595ab_52519f63.jpg)
From 1970 to 1975, some 50,000 Chinese workers were deployed to build the 1,860-kilometer (1,155-mile) route that runs from Zambia’s copper belt to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean.
It remains China’s largest overseas project to date and managed to strengthen Beijing’s political capital during the Cold War.
“Tazara has never reached its full potential,” the embassy wrote Thursday. “By the end of 1978, only two trains were running daily.”
“In the 1980s, the United States joined international partners in responding to the request of Zambia and Tanzania to rehabilitate Tazara, with the US government providing over $27 million through USAID,” he added.
Zajontz said the embassy position was a prime example of how “big powers” are competing for public opinion across Africa.
“Everyone who knows a little about Tazara knows that it will eventually be privatized and that the Chinese would not allow a non-Chinese company to run it – for obvious historical reasons,” Zajontz said.
He added that the tweet showed how “desperate” both China and the West were to underline how much they had invested in African infrastructure initiatives.
Africa’s mineral giants aim for bigger bucks in China-West resource race
Africa’s mineral giants aim for bigger bucks in China-West resource race
“The US wants to get something across the board and this Lobito corridor is a relatively small investment – but the US is a Johnny-come-lately and woefully behind the curve,” Satchu said.
Zajontz said the West wants to control its own transportation routes in the region.
“Both the US and the EU want to prevent a situation in which Chinese transport or logistics companies could disrupt critical value chains if provoked as part of geopolitical escalations,” Zajontz said.
“For Beijing, the recent announcement of Western investment along the Lobito Corridor has certainly increased the geopolitical incentive to invest and operate Tazara.”
Emmanuel Matambo, director of research at the University of Johannesburg’s Center for Africa-China Studies, said China understands the ideological and intangible value of Tazara and so “the concession will not place high demands, if at all, on Zambia and Tanzania ».
As a landlocked country, Zambia in particular struggled to make effective use of its neighbours’ seaports and China was alive to that, he said. “Tazara is more than a railway. embodies China’s longstanding solidarity with the developing world.”
Matambo added that unlike Tanzania, where the ruling party was firmly in power, Zambia was more open politically and China wanted to maintain Zambia’s friendship through leadership changes. Helping in tangible ways, such as the revival of Tazara, will boost China’s image in the eyes of Zambians, he said.