The Chinese Communist Party
Is helping some African dictators
Crack down on political opposition
Using mass surveillance
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode has been sponsored by Surfshark.
Because if your government is trying to spy on you,
you can use Surfshark to help protect your identity online.
So, Africa.
Most African countries have a lot of needs:
Safe drinking water, mass transit, better healthcare...
But you know what these African governments
*really* ought to spend their money on?
Surveillance.
Yeah, that’s the ticket to a bright future.
Which brings us to China.
The Chinese Communist Party
has been accused of colonizing Africa.
They’re not interested in occupying
and ruling African countries directly.
But the Chinese Communist Party is helping
prop up some of the worst dictators in Africa.
There are many, many ways China does this.
But today I’m going to focus on one way:
Mass surveillance.
You’ve probably heard of the Chinese telecom company Huawei.
It’s technically a private company...maybe...
but it has strong connections to the Chinese government
and the Chinese Communist Party.
Huawei
is being used to build a vast surveillance network in African countries.
They’re even training police in how to use their technology
to crack down on anyone who questions that country’s government.
A lot of African dictators simply don’t have the resources
to build their own surveillance infrastructure from scratch.
So they turn to China for help.
Through multi-million dollar deals with Huawei,
they’re bringing China’s techno-autocracy
to one of the poorest continents on Earth.
Because sure, people may not have clean drinking water,
but at least they have Huawei security cameras on every corner!
The Chinese giant supplies most of the 3g and 4G cell towers...
and Surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition.
Even in this village where a lot of homes don't even have electricity
there's a brand new set of surveillance cameras behind me.
That was from this Wall Street Journal Investigation.
Huawei is building the backbone of future 5G networks.
But it’s also building surveillance systems around the world.
The Wall Street Journal investigation looked at police documents
and parliamentary committee documents.
They interviewed diplomats, cyber-defense officials,
and opposition activists who have been targeted,
plus more than a dozen senior security officials
working with Huawei in African countries.
They found that Huawei is actively making countries in Africa
a worse place to live.
At least if you’re not part of the ruling elite.
The Wall Street Journal investigation says,
“According to senior security officials,
embedded, hands-on Huawei technicians
train security forces and cyber-surveillance units
that regularly snoop on political opposition.”
For example, “In Zambia...
Huawei technicians helped the government access
the phones and Facebook pages of a team
of opposition bloggers running a pro-opposition news site.”
Good, so Huawei is helping African dictators silence political opponents.
Then, there’s also what Huawei calls Safe Cities,
or Smart Cities, that they’re trying to build in Africa.
What’s a smart city?
Let’s ask our friendly Huawei representative.
What is Smart City.
To speak briefly...it helps governments
enhance city management quality and efficiency.
Wow, incredibly vague yet terrifying.
I want to know more!
With the development of city construction video surveillance
is widely used in various scenarios.
Such as city security surveillance,
transportation surveillance,
and campus surveillance.
Oh good, campus surveillance.
Now countries around the world can be more like China,
spying on students.
You wouldn’t want students thinking too freely.
Huawei says it has built systems in 700 cities
spread across more than 100 countries and regions.
Not all 700 are smart cities, but in these cities,
some of the smart city components are gradually being installed—
often starting with things like surveillance cameras.
And then there’s the Internet.
China is exporting its model of the Internet to Africa.
In China, the Internet is not a forum
for the free exchange of thoughts and ideas.
It’s a way for the government to monitor and control people.
And the Chinese Communist Party
wants to export its authoritarian model of the internet
around the world.
Africa is a prime testing ground.
Why?
Because most African countries are poor,
meaning they don’t have a lot of
homegrown technology companies to compete.
And many African countries are authoritarian,
meaning they prefer China’s model
of a highly controlled internet.
Chinese government officials have helped secure internet deals
for Huawei throughout Africa,
starting as far back as 1998 in Kenya.
20 years later, Huawei has been responsible
for connecting hundreds of millions of Africans.
“It has built telecom networks in some 40 African nations
by offering inexpensive deals often financed by loans
with favorable terms and by providing
on-the-ground customer service.”
Because of that, Huawei now dominates the African internet market.
And on one hand, that’s a good thing.
More people in Africa now have access to the Internet,
especially through their mobile phones.
But the Chinese Communist Party had a long term plan.
According to the NGO Freedom House,
most of Sub-Saharan Africa is not free.
When those dictators realized the threat Internet access
posed to their regimes,
they again turned to Huawei, for solutions.
And things got worse.
As the Wall Street Journal says,
“A few years ago, the East and Southern African nations
appeared to be regional models for web freedom.”
But thanks to Huawei, that’s begun to change.
Huawei is bringing China’s model of a
highly controlled and censored internet to Africa.
And let’s just say, Africa’s dictators are very happy.
So what do you think about China and Huawei’s plan for the internet?
Tell me what you think in the comments below.
And this episode has been sponsored by Surfshark.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.