Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Could China be Africa’s new Big Brother?
US analysts say Huawei’s control over telecomms is a threat to us all
WASHINGTON: Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei may have been all but barred from doing business in the US over allegations that it’s basically an intelligence agency masquerading as a tech business. In Africa, however, Huawei is thriving.
From Cairo to Joburg, the Chinese telecom has offices in 18 countries and has invested billions of dollars in building African communications networks since the late 1990s. The company’s cheap cellular phones today dominate many of Africa’s most important markets.
Just in the past few months, the firm closed a pair of telecommunications deals in Africa each worth more than $700 million, part of an African business that brings in more than $3.5 billion annually.
According to Huawei’s marketing, the projects are part of a mission of “Enriching (African) Lives through Communication.” But current and former US officials worry there could be another agenda behind Huawei’s penetration into Africa: surveillance.
“If you build the network on which all the data flows, you’re in a perfect position to populate it with backdoors or vulnerabilities that only you know about,” former department of homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff told Foreign Policy.
“That’s a strategic issue for the countries in Africa and a strategic issue for us.”
Huawei spokesman William Plummer called such concerns “silliness,” noting that the company “did $35 billion in business last year, 70 percent outside of China. We will not compromise our commercial success for any government”.
But China is becoming increasingly dependent on Africa’s farms to feed its people, on Africa’s minerals to run its industries, and on Africa’s oil to fuel its cars. China needs Africa as a partner – the closer, the better. Enter Huawei.
“Across Africa – but especially in demographically large or resourcerich nations – Huawei is offering exceptionally competitive prices, generous financing, and fully managed systems to governments,” Chris Demchak, co-director of the Centre for Cyber Conflict Studies at the US Naval War College, told Foreign Policy in an e-mail.
Huawei isn’t just providing cellphones, towers and fibre-optic cable and then turning them over to local businesses. The telecom giant – and sometimes its Chinese rival ZTE – is often running these networks for the local communications providers and the government.
Last month, the firm signed a $700 million deal to build cellular networks in Ethiopia. At the same time, the company inked a deal to run communications networks in Nigeria — networks that it’s had a role in building — for the next five years. Huawei also helps run the networks in Zambia. In oil- rich Angola, Huawei was awarded a contract to build cell networks for the state’s mobile phone firm, Movicel.
“Managing a nation’s backbone telecommunications system, especially if it is seen to be the basis for future economic development, is an exceptionally powerful position for any firm,” Demchak said. “With that kind of monopoly it is much easier to quietly move massive streams of data, malware, and sophisticated penetration campaigns around through complex cyber systems without oversight.”
Several of these African governments – including the Zambian, Ethiopian and Zimbabwean regimes – have all sought Chinese assistance in monitoring their country’s digital communications networks, according to Mai Truong, an Africa analyst at Freedom House.
In February, for example, “Zambian government sought Chinese expertise and assistance in installing internet surveillance and censorship equipment, which occurred after President Michael Sata had signed an order earlier in the month authorising the Office of the President to intercept both telephone and internet communications,” Truong told Foreign Policy in an e-mail. “In Ethiopia, Chinese technical assistance to monitor Ethiopian citizens online was confirmed in June 2012 when the government openly held an ‘internet management’ media workshop with support from the Chinese Communist Party.” While the Zimbabwean government’s ability to monitor citizens’ online behaviours isn’t fully known, “the technology they do have is likely to have been provided by the Chinese, beginning in 2007 after the passage of the Interception of Communications Act,” writes Truong. “The Chinese have been blamed for hacking independent Zimbabwean news websites.”
It’s also worth noting that many African nations have stated the Internet empowers too much free speech, so it’s no secret many of them want to monitor their citizens’ online activities. Zimbabwean digital whistleblower Baba Jukwa is being hunted by the government of President Robert Mugabe – even as Jukwa claims Zimbabwean spooks trained in Internet surveillance are looking for dissenters.
Still, it’s not really news that local governments work with telecommunications firms to monitor networks. “Lawful intercept” is the intelligence world’s term for this practice. What’s more disturbing about Huawei’s involvement in African telecommunications is that it could provide the Chinese with direct access to those networks.
“Even if there aren’t any backdoors, which is a large hypothesis, just the Chinese state having access to the architecture of your system is a tremendous advantage should they want to engage in any electronic surveillance, any electronic eavesdropping,” Hayden said.
Plummer, the Huawei spokesman, indirectly acknowledged the fears about China’s cyberspying. But he said those worries had only made Huawei’s privacy and security protections stronger.
“We have put in place sophisticated security assurance disciplines – from ideation to after-market service – to ensure the integrity of our gear and code,” Plummer said.
He then suggested that Westerners accusing Huawei of rampant spying “are looking into the ‘mirror’ of the US PRISM and related programmes and assuming like activity by other states. “Huawei is not involved and will not engage in any such activity,” he said.
But Huawei’s deep involvement in African networks could give the Chinese an edge in almost any business deal or security matter on the continent. US cybersecurity experts have repeatedly cited cases of Chinese hackers stealing American corporations’ negotiating strategies and business plans in order to give rival Chinese companies a leg up.
In addition to giving Huawei – and potentially the Chinese government – vital intelligence on African nations, Demchak worries that access to Africa’s telecommunications infrastructure could make it even easier for Chinese hackers to disguise their attacks by rerouting them through the continent.
“Laundering of bad cyber behaviors through these backbones could be largely untouchable and uncontrollable externally by other nations,” said Demchak.
If she’s right, Huawei’s investments in Africa could be an issue for all of us. – Washington Post