China has dismissed reports it bugged the African Union (AU) headquarters as “preposterous”.
Kuang Weilin, the Chinese ambassador to the AU, told reporters in Ethiopia the “absurd” claim in France’s Le Monde was “very difficult to understand”.
He spoke out three days after the newspaper published an article claiming data from the Chinese-built AU building was being copied to Shanghai.
Le Monde spoke to a number of anonymous sources, who claimed the alleged transfer was taking place late at night [link in French], and was only spotted in January 2017 due to the spike in activity between midnight and 02:00, despite no-one being in the building.
It was suggested the alleged data transfer had been taking place since 2012, when the building, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, was opened.
Officials also brought in security experts from Algeria to sweep the entire headquarters for potential bugs, the newspaper said, leading to the discovery of microphones in desks.
But Mr Kuang – who hailed the headquarters as a “monument” to his country’s relationship with the continent – said it was entirely untrue.
“I really question its intention,” he told reporters on Monday. “I think it will undermine and send a very negative message to people. I think it is not good for the image of the newspaper itself.
“Certainly, it will create problems for China-Africa relations.”
China rejects claim it bugged headquarters it built for African Union
Beijing dismisses report it put bugs in walls and desks and downloaded data from its servers every night for five years
Tue 30 Jan 2018 01.00 GMT
China and the African Union dismissed on Monday a report that Beijing had bugged the regional bloc’s headquarters, which it built and paid for in the Ethiopian capital.
French newspaper Le Monde quoted anonymous African Union (AU) sources saying that data from computers in the Chinese-built building had been transferred nightly to Chinese servers for five years.
After the hack was discovered a year ago, the building’s IT system including servers was changed, according to Le Monde. During a sweep for bugs after the discovery, microphones were also found hidden in desks and the walls, the newspaper reported.
The $200m headquarters was fully funded and built by China and opened to great fanfare in 2012. It was seen as a symbol of Beijing’s thrust for influence in Africa, and access to the continent’s natural resources.
As in the Ethiopian capital, China’s investments in road and rail infrastructure are highly visible across the continent. At a 2015 summit in South Africa, Chinese president Xi Jinping pledged $60bn in aid and investment to the continent, saying it would continue to build roads, railways and ports.
Chinese and African officials who were in Addis Ababa for the bloc’s annual summit denied Le Monde’s report.
China’s ambassador to the AU, Kuang Weilin, called the article “ridiculous and preposterous” and said its publication was intended to put pressure on relations between Beijing and the continent. “China-Africa relations have brought about benefits and a lot of opportunities. Africans are happy with it. Others are not.“
Asked who he referred to, he said: “People in the west. They are not used to it and they are simply not comfortable with this.“
Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president who assumed the AU chairmanship this year, said he did not know anything about it. “But, in any case, I don’t think there is anything done here that we would not like people to know,” he said after a meeting of African heads of state.
“I don’t think spying is the speciality of the Chinese. We have spies all over the place in this world,” Kagame said. “But I will not have been worried about being spied on in this building.”
His only concern, he said, was that the AU, instead of China, should have built the headquarters. “I would only have wished that in Africa we had got our act together earlier on. We should have been able to build our own building.”
Source – The Guardian