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Is China Wiring Africa For Surveillance?
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Huawei has invested billions of dollars in Africa over the last two decades, providing affordable cell phones, internet access, and telecommunications networks to the continent. Over the last few months Huawei has closed major deals in Africa to get more areas on the grid. The company says it's bridging the digital divide, but others suspect it's wiring the continent for surveillance."
China is the greatest enemy of the USA, and ALL major US military planning is designed for future conflict between these two powers. So, no surprise then that the owners of Slashdot ensure a constant stream of articles attacking China. Attack Iran, attack China, praise Israel. Is there anyone here so thick that they do not notice this tedious pattern?
PS do the owners of Slashdot still prevent citizens of Iran from accessing the open-source websites they also control. And NO, there is no US law requiring this.
About 4 years ago, I took a trip to Ethiopia. One guy I talked to there was the head of an aid organization that helped build infrastructure in the more rural parts of the country. He explained to me that while the Western countries like the US, Germany, the UK, etc donated money to local organizations, the Chinese preferred to come in and do the job themselves. It saves on the corruption and waste, and they get to build a positive impression themselves. So you see lots of Chinese companies there building roads, burying cable, building farms/industry, etc.
He told me they had the right idea. The Chinese are *investing* in Africa as opposed to donating to it. That's going to have a long-term impact on who has more influence in Africa. So yeah, they're going to build surveillance...they're building the infrastructure. If we wanted to stop them, we'd go start building too.
Maybe their trying to protect their resources. There has been trouble at some of the Chinese run mines. If they had good surveillance maybe they could prevent some of the 'trouble' that they have had.
As an Australian in the Oil&Gas (and previously the mining) industry, the main reason Australia's economy is so big right now is because it's more expensive and dangerous to rip the shit outta Africa and Brazil.
Once China (the biggest importer of iron by a long way) nail that down, I'll need to expatriate or be out of a job. Providing digital-age tools and infrastructure to Africa is an incredibly smart move for China.
dunno.. you could wire up 20% of africa for gratis with the NSA budget.
Not going to happen, it wouldn't help a bit the US defence industry.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Huawei employee here (non-chinese, btw).
Huawei is not being shut out of "western" markets, with the exception of the US. Huawei has an extensive deployment of radio, wireless access, packet switching and core systems across Europe and Latinamerica. A good portion of what 3G and LTE networks in both sides of the Atlantic for any operator you care to mention is using Huawei sytems.
I must recognise, though, that laws and regulations (both in telecom proper and labour areas) make it easier for Huawei in african countries than they do elsewhere.
Huawei is *not* a multinational company with its headquarters in China, it is a Chinese company with offices all over the world. Big difference. All decision-making is either done from China or by chinese PHBs abroad; and many of them can't seem to get that they are not in China (when in Europe, for instance) and they want to do things in their own way, which is proving to be easier in (some) african countries.
IMO, yes, Huawei is wiring Africa for its own purposes...and that may involve surveillance.