Stretching across rivers, wetlands and savannas in East Africa, a landmark railway links Kapiri Mposhi at the heart of the African continent to Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean coast. For more than half a century, it has been revered as the Road to Uhuru, a railway of friendship and shared prosperity.
This month, we mark the 50th anniversary of TAZARA’s official handover to Zambia and Tanzania, alongside the 105th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It was under the Party’s leadership that China made the historic decision to support TAZARA’s construction back in the 1960s. Looking back on this chapter of history, the profound bond between the railway and the CPC becomes self-evident. Though built on African soil thousands of miles away, TAZARA powerfully embodies the core values of this century-old Marxist party: unwavering dedication to national liberation, commitment to equal friendship and partnership, and an enduring focus on inclusive growth and shared prosperity.
The Road to Uhuru: The CPC’s Pursuit of National Liberation
Zambia and Tanzania won independence from colonial rule in the 1960s, yet true freedom remained incomplete. As landlocked nations cut off from unimpeded ocean access, they lacked full economic autonomy, leaving their newly gained political independence fragile and insecure. This is why the Zambian and Tanzanian people yearned desperately for the Road to Uhuru—a vital steel lifeline that would break the economic blockade imposed by the apartheid regime and connect them to maritime trade routes.
Their longing for sovereignty struck a deep chord with the CPC. The Party itself emerged and matured amid China’s semi-colonial, semi-feudal past, a nation that endured a century of foreign invasion, eroded sovereignty and outside control over its economic lifelines. From its founding in 1921 to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CPC led the Chinese people through 28 years of arduous struggle to win national liberation, resisting colonial oppression and feudal exploitation alike. Through countless life-or-death trials—the Long March, the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and more—Chinese Communists forged an unshakable conviction: freedom is never handed out freely; it can only be secured through relentless struggle and sacrifice.
This shared history forged profound solidarity, explaining why China resolved to back TAZARA’s construction even amid severe domestic economic hardship. Western powers had turned down Zambia and Tanzania’s request, dismissing the project as commercially and technically unviable. On September 5, 1967, China, Zambia and Tanzania signed a cooperation agreement in Beijing. Shortly afterwards, over 50,000 Chinese engineers and technicians travelled thousands of miles to Africa. Working alongside Zambian and Tanzanian counterparts under brutally harsh conditions, they spent five years and eight months completing this monumental project, delivering a powerful boost to liberation movements across the African continent.
The Road of Friendship: The CPC’s Understanding of Genuine Partnership
During the colonial era, railways built across Africa served solely as tools for colonizers to plunder mineral wealth, bringing little meaningful empowerment to local populations. What the continent truly needed was infrastructure built to serve its own people, underpinned by partnerships rooted in mutual respect, equality and good faith.
This call for equitable cooperation and sincere friendship resonated deeply with the CPC. The Party rose from the humiliation of unequal treaties forced upon China by Western invaders, and has long enshrined universal equality as a core pursuit of its mission. As early as the 1950s, the CPC put forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to guide China’s diplomatic engagement: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. Championed by China, these principles are now widely recognized as foundational norms governing international relations. China’s turbulent modern history shaped the CPC’s unique vision of friendship and partnership: genuine cooperation rests on mutual respect and equal footing, rather than coercive preconditions or one-sided demands.
This philosophy laid solid groundwork for TAZARA’s construction, followed by successive rounds of Chinese development aid and grants—all offered without political strings attached or exploitative privileges demanded. Throughout construction, Chinese engineers lived and worked side by side with local colleagues, generously sharing everything from daily meals to critical technical expertise. James Kinyasi Millya, Tanzania’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, emphasized that China’s support stemmed purely from fraternal solidarity: “No preconditions, no ulterior demands—only solidarity between friends.”
The Road to Development: The CPC’s Guiding Philosophy of Growth
Before TAZARA was built, Zambia’s landlocked interior and inland regions of Tanzania faced crippling transport bottlenecks that stifled exports of mineral and agricultural goods. Vast untapped markets remained isolated by harsh wilderness, leaving abundant natural resources unable to drive local economic growth or improve ordinary people’s livelihoods.
The solution lies in the CPC’s time-tested development philosophy, encapsulated by a well-known Chinese adage: “To thrive, build roads first.” This simple maxim captures one of the core drivers of China’s transformative development under CPC leadership.
When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the country lay in ruins. The CPC immediately mobilized nationwide resources, rallying massive teams of civilians and military personnel to build landmark infrastructure: the Qinghai-Xizang Highway, the Sichuan-Xizang Highway, the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway and more, linking remote, underdeveloped western regions to the rest of the country.
Following the launch of reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, the Party elevated infrastructure development to a top national priority. China went on to build the world’s most extensive highway and high-speed rail networks, alongside a fully integrated nationwide logistics system. This transformation reshaped millions of lives in remote mountain villages: farm produce reached urban consumers nationwide, young people from impoverished households travelled far from home to pursue higher education for the first time, and once-isolated villages were fully integrated into national economic circuits. Roads and railways have formed the bedrock of China’s economic expansion and unprecedented poverty alleviation achievements.
Fifty years on from its handover, TAZARA has entered a new chapter of revitalization. On November 20, 2025, the groundbreaking ceremony for the TAZARA Revitalization Project was held in Lusaka. Over the next two to three years, China will invest nearly USD 1.4 billion in upgrading the line: 390 kilometers of new steel rails will be laid, annual freight capacity will surge from 200,000 tons to 2.4 million tons, and transit travel time will be cut by two-thirds. The CPC’s steadfast belief in infrastructure as an engine of progress has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens out of hardship—and it will undoubtedly deliver tangible, life-changing benefits to countless people across the Global South, starting right here in Zambia.
Two days prior to this writing, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and President of the People’s Republic of China, delivered a keynote address at the ceremony commemorating the CPC’s 105th anniversary. He reflected on the Party’s 105-year journey and its far-reaching achievements for both the Chinese people and the wider world. General Secretary Xi stressed that as the Party leads the Chinese people in advancing Chinese modernization today, China enriches the diversity of human civilizations and opens up new viable pathways for developing countries pursuing their own modernization drives. As the CPC advances the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, it contributes Chinese wisdom, solutions and strength to addressing humanity’s most pressing global challenges. Under CPC leadership, socialist China is widely acknowledged as a guardian of world peace, a driving force for global development, and a staunch defender of the legitimate international order.
The path forward is clear. The CPC will continue to uphold the ideals embodied by the Road to Uhuru: freedom, friendship and shared development, working hand in hand with partners across the globe—especially fellow nations of the Global South. The TAZARA Railway serves as a vivid window into the CPC’s core philosophy, helping the world understand how the Party has travelled its extraordinary 105-year journey. It also conveys a timeless, fundamental truth: a political party’s rise or fall hinges on whether it listens to the people’s aspirations, sets just and forward-looking goals, and acts resolutely to turn those visions into reality.