The Chinese leader is on an eight-nation tour of Africa -- his third to the continent since coming to power in 2003 -- in a bid to increase China's share of Africa's oil and energy resources.

Hu is expected in Lusaka at around 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) to hold talks with President Levy Mwanawasa.

But his scheduled visit to a Chinese-run copper mine in Chambeshi, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Lusaka, where 50 Zambians perished in a mine explosion in 2005, has been cancelled after reports of planned protests.

And Zambia's main opposition leader Michael Sata, an outspoken critic of growing Chinese influence in the country, has not been invited to attend any public function during Hu's visit.

"We have invited opposition political party leaders to attend public functions like the state banquet," Information minister Vernon Mwaanga told the Daily Mail. "But I can tell you specifically that we have not invited any leader from (Sata's) Patriotic Front because they do not recognise the Chinese people."

Sata threatened last year to expel Chinese traders from Zambia if he were elected president. "They can dump their cheap goods here but not human beings," he said during a campaign rally for the September 2006 general election, during which President Mwanawasa was re-elected for a second term.

Chinese investment in the poverty-stricken southern African country -- mainly in mining, textile and construction -- has soared in recent years and the litany of complaints has grown in parallel.