Perspective: China syndromeHuawei's Dominance of Africa's Mobile Networks Mean More Spying on African Citizens

Published 16 September 2019

Chinese tech firm Huawei has been increasing its footprint across Africa, providing countries with new technology and telecommunications equipment, including most notably 4G and 5G mobile networks. Some of this expansion has involved Huawei technicians helping governments in Africa to spy on their political opponents.

Chinese tech firm Huawei has been increasing its footprint across Africa, providing countries with new technology and telecommunications equipment, including most notably 4G and 5G mobile networks. According to an Aug. 14 article in the Wall Street Journal, some of this expansion has involved Huawei technicians helping governments in Africa to spy on their political opponents. In Uganda, the technicians reportedly helped national security services penetrate the WhatsApp and Skype accounts of an opposition candidate, allowing them to examine his plans for street rallies and other political activities. In a separate case in Zambia, Huawei technicians supposedly helped telecommunications regulators access the phones and Facebook pages of opposition bloggers and pinpoint their locations.

Huawei and both countries denied the claims, but such spying would fit with the tendency of ruling governments in Africa to undermine their political opponents and with the role that telecommunications and other tech companies play as facilitators of communication and coordination. Unlike many Western countries, the government in Beijing takes similar actions within its borders and ignores human rights, including privacy.

A Stratfor Worldview analysis published in the National Interest argues that the company’s expansion in Africa has many political, economic and security implications tied to the great power competition between China and the United States. The Wall Street Journal report shows the power that can come with controlling national communication networks. Operators have command over and insight into the information and communication patterns running through the infrastructure they provide. Control is one reason why net neutrality is such a controversial topic in the United States. It’s also why the U.S. government attempts to work with tech companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Apple and Facebook to counter terrorist groups, criminal organizations and foreign espionage. The extent of this cooperation, including the use of built-in “back doors,” is intensely controversial in the United States given the separation between the public and private sectors and the strength of privacy laws and regulations. Apple’s refusal to unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters in the 2015 San Bernardino, California, attack demonstrates the limits of this cooperation, even in cases of domestic terrorism.

The Stratfor Worldview notes:

While Huawei and China aren’t the only threats to data privacy, the scale of the company’s global expansion combined with U.S. fears that China will exploit backdoors in its technology have raised its prominence in the U.S.-Chinese global competition. In Africa, the expansion of Huawei 5G networks developed in close cooperation with home governments could give authorities unlimited access to data, communications and other information stored on and transmitted through these networks. Governments that own and operate various forms of infrastructure — highways, ports or 5G mobile networks — that multinational corporations, local businesses and individuals rely on can abuse that access. And political opponents, companies, travelers and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) could become targets.