China's Agenda at the Forum on China Africa Cooperation

 The China Global South Project published in August 2024 an analysis titled "China's Agenda at FOCAC 2024: Climate, Connectivity & Coalitions" by Cobus van Staden.

This report looks at the China-Africa relationship from the Chinese perspective as the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) approaches in September.  It explains why Africa matters to China, where the relationship currently stands, and what China's priorities will be at FOCAC.

China's Huawei to Build Digital Infrastructure in Guinea

 Wearetech.africa posted on 6 August 2024 an article titled "Guinea, Huawei Partner to Expand Digital Infrastructure, ICT Access" by Samira Njoya.

Guinea signed a memorandum of understanding with China's Huawei to develop high speed digital networks, including fiber optics, throughout the country.  Guinea received $60 million from the World Bank for digital products.  

Algeria, Egypt, and China's Digital Silk Road

 The Information Society published in 2024 an analysis titled "Learning along the Digital Silk Road? Technology Transfer, Power, and Chinese ICT Corporations in North Africa" by Tin Hinane El-Kadi, London School of Economics.  

The analysis investigates the technology spillovers emanating from two Chinese tech giants--Huawei and ZTE--in Algeria and Egypt.  It argues that despite localizing activities that bear the promise of generating significant linkages, the two Chinese tech firms created no meaningful learning opportunities for domestic entities that contribute to technological upgrading.  The Digital Silk Road risks creating new technological dependencies; locking local ICT actors into activities and relationships captured and defined by Chinese tech giants.  

Economist Intelligence Unit Predicts New Direction in Africa-China Relations

 The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has just released a thoughtful report titled "A New Horizon for Africa-China Relations."

It concludes that the new themes in the Africa-China relationship suggest a more balanced approach to Chinese engagement in Africa during the decade ahead.  EIU argues that China intends to expand its engagement with Africa over the coming decade through increasingly diversified trade; additional investment in target sectors and trade-facilitating infrastructure; projects that address Africa's environmental, social and governance issues; and a more hands-on and interventionist approach to regional diplomacy.

EIU says China's food security issues and enormous food import requirements could drive large trade and investment flows in African agricultural products and production.  African-located manufacturing ventures will increasingly serve as an export base for industries that connect with Chinese value chains and target Chinese markets.

Citing the hosting by China in June of a Horn of Africa Peace Conference in Addis Ababa, EIU foresees an increase in political engagement in the subregion but without a fundamental shift in Chinese foreign policy away from its long-standing principle of non-interference in the affairs of other countries.

The trajectory of China-Africa ties will remain more focused on deepening still relatively shallow trade and investment links, rather than more active diplomatic mediation or more formal security arrangements.  

EIU offers a cautionary note.  The Chinese economy is slowing, and this will directly impact Africa in the short to medium term.

Comment:  I would add three other cautionary notes.  While China-Africa trade has resumed and reached a new high in 2021, it has since 2013 become increasingly unbalanced in favor of China with China maintaining a significant trade surplus with Africa.  This is good for China, but not so good for Africa, and will likely lead to growing concerns in those African countries experiencing large and persistent trade deficits with China.

EIU suggests Africa may play a more important role in exporting agricultural products to meet China's increasing need.  This may occur over the long term, but Africa remains a net importer of food products and is not well positioned over the short and medium term to fulfill this need.

EIU also suggests Africa may benefit from the shifting of manufacturing capacity from China to Africa.  So far, however, most of the manufacturing that has left China has not gone to Africa but to other lower cost destinations in Southeast and South Asia.   

China, Tanzania, and the Digital Silk Road

 The South African Institute of International Affairs published in November 2021 a policy brief titled "China-powered ICT Infrastructure: Lessons from Tanzania and Cambodia" by Motolani Agbebi, Gong Xue, and Zheng Yu.  

The study looked at the socioeconomic and governance impacts of large Chinese ICT projects in Tanzania and Cambodia.  Compared to other infrastructure developments, these projects had relatively limited socioeconomic and governance outcomes.  

China's Digital Silk Road Encourages Authoritarian Model

A Democratic staff report prepared for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on 21 July 2020 titled "The New Big Brother: China and Digital Authoritarianism" details China's growing influence on the digital sphere as China promotes an alternative model for the digital domain based on state control.

China's Belt and Road Initiative contains an effort to create a Digital Silk Road that will allow it to shape the future of the global Internet and reinforce the Communist Party of China's leadership at home for decades to come.  Other nations such as Zimbabwe have or are looking to acquire Chinese information and communication technologies (ICT) and integrate them into their national infrastructures, opening up potential opportunities for abuse.  

China's efforts to advance and proliferate its ICT hardware and systems, both in China and overseas, represent not only a desire to continually expand its economy, but also to push to establish, expand, internationalize, and institutionalize a model for digital governance that this reports describes as "digital authoritarianism."

China's Impact on Facial Recognition Programs in Africa

The South African Mail & Guardian published on 8 July 2019 a commentary titled "Tuning Surveillance Software with African Faces" by Bulelani Jili, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research.

African states, including Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Zambia, with the support of China, are following the Communist Party of China's efforts to obtain data, which is threatening traditional conceptions of privacy. These software surveillance programs capture personal data that result in one of the world's most sophisticated and racially diversified facial recognition databases.

US Prosper Africa vs China's Belt and Road Initiative

Brookings published on 26 June 2019 a commentary titled "Can Trump's Prosper Africa Make America Greater Than China and Other Partners in Africa?" by Landry Signe, Africa Growth Initiative, and Eric Olander, China Africa Project.

Prosper Africa aligns with the Trump administration's Africa strategy, which aims to promote prosperity, security, and stability in U.S.-Africa relations by prioritizing trade and investment. Its success relies overwhelmingly on the U.S. private sector, which historically has been reluctant to invest in Africa unless there are strong prospects for making a significant profit.

China's Huawei Expands into Kenyan Market

Kenya's Business Daily published on 6 May 2019 an article titled "Huawei Poised To Fuel China Foreign Policy in Kenya" by Aggrey Mutambo.

Huawei will build a Kenyan national cloud data center, smart ICT network, public safe city and smart traffic solution as well as a cloud center for the government enterprise service.

China's Digital Silk Road in Africa

Germany's Deutsche Welle posted on 3 May 2019 a story titled "Investing in Africa's Tech Infrastructure. Has China Won Already?" by Chiponda Chimbelu.

China's digital silk road is connecting Africa while US companies are largely absent.

Africa and the Global Competitiveness Index

The World Economic Forum publishes annually "The Global Competitiveness Report"; the report for 2018 is available. It evaluated 140 economies, including 38 in Africa. The index looks at 12 categories dealing with enabling environment (institutions, infrastructure, ICT adoption, and macroeconomic stability), human capital (health and skills), markets (product market, labor market, financial system, and market size), and innovation ecosystem (business dynamism and innovation capability).

The ten highest ranked countries in Africa are Mauritius (49), South Africa (67), Seychelles (74), Morocco (75), Tunisia (87), Botswana (90), Algeria (92), Kenya (93), Egypt (94), and Namibia (100). Of the 30 lowest ranked countries, 26 of them are in Africa.

Is China Imposing Its Information Society Model on Africa?

Bridges Africa published in July 2018 an article titled "Is China Changing Information Societies in Africa?" by Iginio Gagliadone, University of Witswatersrand.

The author notes that some have accused China of trying to export its ICT model overseas, resulting in a more authoritarian version of the internet. He concludes that the analysis of China's ICT engagement in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Ghana offers little support for this hypothesis. On the other hand, the fact that African states are being helped by China in asserting their own controls over those of other actors may bring this accusation closer to the truth in the longer run.

China-Africa ICT Cooperation

The Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University published on 12 December 2016 a commentary titled "The Fourth Industrial Revolution: China-Africa Co-operation" by Tichafa Chidzonga, research assistant at the Centre for Chinese Studies.

The commentary addresses how China-Africa cooperation in information communication technology (ICT) is navigating the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Chinese ICT Companies in Africa

The China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at Johns Hopkins University published in July 2016 a policy brief titled "Technology Transfer in Telecommunications: Barriers and Opportunities in the Case of Huawei and ZTE in South Africa" by June Sun, a graduate student at the Oxford Department of International Development. The paper discusses the pros and cons of Huawei and ZTE in South Africa and notes they are fiercely competitive in this market.

CARI published a second policy brief in July 2016 titled "Do Huawei's Training Programs and Centers Transfer Skills to Africa?" by Benjamin Tsui, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. While Huawei has training centers in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the DRC, Angola, and Morocco, the author leaves open the question as to their effectiveness.

China-Africa ICT Cooperation in Education

This is Africa published on 29 June 2015 an article titled "Africa's Schools Targeted in China Tech Export Move" by Stephen Haggard, head of a technology-based learning company in Nairobi, Kenya. 

China hosted a conference for delegations from 20 African countries aimed at producing a policy framework for the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in education up to 2030.  China promised to support ICT in education in developing countries.