Zambia’s presidential election has become a strategic proxy contest between China and the United States over control of the copper supply essential for the global energy transition, with the winner inheriting responsibility for a planned tripling of output to three million tonnes annually by 2031. The landlocked southern African nation sits on some of the world’s most important copper deposits, a metal now indispensable for electrical grids, electric vehicles, data centers, defense systems, and low-emission technologies. Whoever occupies the presidency will determine how Zambia navigates competing great-power interests while trying to convert mineral wealth into broad-based prosperity.
Copper’s elevation to critical-mineral status has transformed Zambia’s traditional comparative advantage into a geopolitical lever. The energy transition’s voracious appetite for conductive metals — the International Energy Agency projects copper demand could double by 2040 in a net-zero scenario — has turned the Copperbelt and northwestern mining regions into contested terrain. China has spent two decades embedding itself across the value chain, from equity stakes in major mines to financing infrastructure and providing export routes through Tanzanian and Mozambican ports. That entrenchment gives Beijing de facto influence over output decisions and ore flows that Western capitals now view as a strategic vulnerability.
The United States has responded with a corridor strategy anchored by the Lobito Atlantic Railway, a rehabilitated line linking the Copperbelt to Angola’s port of Lobito. Backed by the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, the corridor aims to offer a reliable, Western-aligned export route that reduces dependence on Chinese-controlled logistics. Washington has also pursued critical-minerals agreements and mobilized development finance to support new mining projects. Yet these efforts remain nascent compared with China’s operational scale, and the Lobito line’s full capacity is years from realization.
Domestically, the election pits President Hakainde Hichilema’s record of macroeconomic stabilization — including a $12.3 billion debt restructuring that restored IMF support and investor confidence — against opposition claims that fiscal discipline has not translated into tangible improvements for Zambia’s 22 million citizens, most of whom remain poor. The paradox is familiar: copper booms have historically swelled state coffers without proportionally improving public services, employment quality, or household incomes. The next administration must negotiate mining contracts that capture more value domestically, enforce environmental and labor standards, and invest revenues in human capital — all while managing a relationship with two superpowers that each treat Zambian copper as a national-security priority.
Read the full report at The Energy Post.