About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of Chinese technology on Africa's digital landscape, highlighting both benefits and concerns regarding surveillance and data privacy.

China is the indispensable actor in Africa's tech ecosystem. From Huawei's telecom infrastructure to Transsion's dominant smartphone brands and Hikvision's surveillance systems, Chinese technologies are now deeply embedded across the continent, often holding leading market share in their sectors. While the prominent role of Chinese technology has delivered significant benefits to African governments and consumers, it's also raised serious concerns among activists and policymakers around data privacy, the expansion of surveillance capabilities, and well-documented misuse by authoritarian-leaning governments. Bulelani Jili, an assistant professor at Georgetown University and a leading scholar on China–Africa technology engagement, joins Eric and Cobus to discuss his latest research exploring the tension between how Chinese technology can drive meaningful empowerment and create potentially dangerous dependencies. Show Notes: African Affairs: Pedagogies of Digital Sovereignty: The Un/Making Of Dependency Through Technical Education in Kenya by Bulelani Jili Join the Discussion: X: @ChinaGSProject | @eric_olander | @stadenesque Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject YouTube…

People in this episode

Hosts: Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden

Guest: Bulelani Jili

Topics covered

• China-Africa relations
• digital transformation
• surveillance technology
• data privacy
• authoritarianism
• telecom infrastructure

Keywords

• China
• Africa
• surveillance
• technology
• Huawei
• Transsion
• Hikvision
• data privacy
• digital transformation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Georgetown University, Huawei, Transsion, Hikvision

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