Beware of superpowers bearing gifts
The African Union’s ‘spy’ computers show that aid always comes with strings attached
The African Union as we know it today is only possible thanks to the generosity of others. Its headquarters building — the shiny, $200-million skyscraper in Addis Ababa — was a gift from the Chinese government to its “African friends”. Its operating budget is more than 50% funded by the European Union and other Western donors. Its peacekeeping missions are paid for, in part, by the United Nations.
But a recent report by French newspaper Le Monde underscored the old proverb: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Le Monde reported that the AU’s computer network — also a gift from China — has been sending confidential data to servers in Shanghai, giving the Chinese government access to the AU’s electronic secrets.
The security breach was only discovered in January last year, five years after the computer network was installed, when IT technicians grew suspicious of large, unexplained data transfers that were happening between midnight and 2am.
Both the Chinese government and the AU have denied the claim, which reflects poorly on both institutions.
But the report is far more damag- ing to the credibility of the AU. It is not exactly a surprise that China — or any country — would take any opportunity available to extract valuable geopolitical intelligence. Nor is it a surprise that China’s $200-million gift was not entirely altruistic.
It is a surprise, however, that the AU did not anticipate that its free computer network may not be secure, and take proactive measures to protect its information. That the alleged breach overlapped almost exactly with the tenure of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as chairperson of the AU Commission — it was resolved during the handover period to her successor, Moussa Faki — raises serious questions over her leadership.
The incident encapsulates, in microcosm, the tensions inherent in Africa’s torturous relationship with aid and charity. It offers a lesson that African leaders would be wise to take to heart: that in the rough world of international politics, acts of true altruism are vanishingly rare.
It’s not just China. Superpower gifts always come with strings attached. They must be treated with suspicion, no matter how good the deal sounds at first glance.
But rejecting these gifts is not always easy. This is especially true for the biggest gift of them all: the billions of dollars that African countries receive from more developed nations in the form of aid or development assistance. This money is billed as charity; it’s anything but that.
In 2015, developing world nations, led by South Africa, arrived at the UN Financing for Development Conference with a radical proposal. Scrap aid, they said, because it’s crippling innovation and distorting our economies. Instead, they asked Western nations to close the tax havens that allow $50-billion a year to exit Africa in illicit financial flows — about double the official aid donated to the continent, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
The proposal was flatly refused by Western nations, led by the United Kingdom and United States, which know that billions of dollars in aid is a small price to pay to maintain an economic system in which billions more go the other way.
For African leaders, economic independence is the only way to sever the strings attached to the “charity” bequeathed by superpowers. As long as African countries can’t afford to function without aid, they will be beholden to donor nations.
That problem won’t be solved any time soon. But the best place to start may be with the AU itself. As long as China is paying for the continental body’s infrastructure and the EU is covering running costs, its independence is compromised. That’s why the plan of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, which includes a continentwide 0.2% import tax levied on certain foreign goods, to make the AU financially self-sufficient is so important to the future of the institution.
Once that happens, maybe the AU will be able to buy its own computers — ones that don’t send its secrets to Shanghai, or anywhere else. Liberia’s new president, George Weah, has pledged to cut his own salary by a quarter. “The state of the economy that my administration inherited leaves a lot to do and to be decided,” the former international soccer star said in a nationwide address. He also warned of tough economic times ahead for Liberia. In addition to his pay cut, the president said he would seek to change the country’s Constitution to allow foreigners to apply for Liberian citizenship.
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