Chinese Tech in North Africa

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome to the China Mena podcast.I'm your host Jonathan Fulton, a senior
Nonresident Fellow at the Atlanta Council anda political scientist at Zide University at Abudabbey,
United Arab Emirates. The ambitious SpeltonRoad Initiative or BRI, has gotten
the lion's share of stories about theexpansion of China's global presence. A series
of hard and soft infrastructure projects,the BRI is a major push for global

(00:32):
status, power and influence. Aless notice but incredibly influential component of the
BRI is the Digital Silk Road Initiativeor the DSRI, which Beijing announced in
twenty fifteen. The DSRI Beijing iscoordinating with partner countries to improve telcommunication networks,
artificial intelligence, cloud computing, ecommerce, mobile payment system, smart

(00:53):
cities, and surveillance technology. Ascountries around the world seem to address development
issues through digital means, China's playinga major role in its tech giants have
made significant inroads to explain what theDSRI is and how it's being used to
further develop relations between China and NorthAfrican countries. I'm joined by Tinanan al

(01:14):
Khadi Tinhanan is a political economy researcherwhose work focuses on China, the Middle
East, digital technologies and development,and the knowledge economy. She's doing her
doctoral studies at the London School ofEconomics, is an Associate Fellow of Chatham
House in London, and is theco founder of the Institute for Social Science
Research on Algeria. She's also theauthor of a great policy paper recently published

(01:37):
by the Carnegie down At for Internationalpiece titled how Huawei's Localization in North Africa
delivered Mixed Results. Tinanon, welcometo the show. So glad you joined
us. Hijanethan, thanks a lot, glad to be here. Oh of
course we were near the top ofthe list. We want to get joined
here right away, so well,of course, thank you. So,

(01:59):
Like I said the production, Iassume by this point everybody has some not
about the Belton Road Initiative, butthe Digital Silk Road Initiative hasn't really gotten
the same kind of widespread traction yet. Can you give our listeners a brief
overview of the DSRI? What isit and why is it important? Sure?
So, the Digital Silk Road Initiativeor the SRI is the digital component

(02:23):
of China's Belton Road initiative. It'smainly driven by Chinese tech giants such as
Huawei, Ali Baba, bay Do, Tencent, among others. The white
paper that launched it in two andfifteen described it as an initiative that aims
to promote connectivity across the world,and this comes by installing you fiber optic

(02:46):
cables, data centers, small cities, telecom equipment including five G networks across
BRI countries so in Africa and Asia, in Europe and Latin America an Until
today, it's unclear what projects fitinto the Digital Silk Road initiative. It

(03:07):
seems that virtually every project that isrelated to telecommunications or data is leveled as
a Digital Silk Road project. Andin this sense, it's a bit like
the BRI where you know it endedup being a rebranding of Chinese investments abroad.

(03:30):
But it is a highly strategic initiative. So arguably, so far the
digital space has been dominated by theUS, and the Digital Silk Road is
China's attempt to capture the digital space, and so it is highly important because
whoever wins the digital race wins thefuture. In a way that's really really

(03:54):
helpful in the way you're describing it. You're absolutely right, it does sound
like BRI. I remember about fouror five years ago talking to a Chinese
diplomat in the Gulf and saying,you know, for all the engagement you
have with with golf countries, itdoesn't really seem to be part of this
grand BRI map that was being publishedso much back then. And he basically

(04:15):
said, anything we do, anykind of bilateral engagement is BRI. It
doesn't matter. You know, everythingis BRI now. So I think it's
the same thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, in the same way.
In the most projects that are likein the telecom sector, data centers being
built or fiber optic cables being installed, applications from Chinese based firms are all

(04:41):
you know, labeled Digital silk Roadinitiatives. So it's unclear you know,
how to disentangle all of that,but I think it's it's all part of
the BRI and the Digital silf roadwhen it's take related, right, And
it's great for the companies, rightbecause they could have something that is just
I want to get a contract,but if they put the DSRI label on

(05:01):
it, so they're going to geta lot more support from from Chinese leaning
entities or from the government. Soyeah, it really does often seem like
a brand for some of these theselarger initiatives. One of the things that
we all keep hearing about, especiallyin the Middle East, is Huawei.
And of course I'm from Canada andfor several years Huawei was a very,

(05:21):
very very big issue in our relationsbetween Canada and China. How does Huawei
fit into this, I mean youwrote about it specifically in your report Huaihuawei
Wow. Huawei is definitely one ofthe most important Chinese tech firms in general,
but also its presence in the region, in the Middle East and North

(05:42):
Africa is significant. So within thedigital sick road, it plays an important
control and we're seeing increasing numbers oflike contracts from the region corporation agreements with
Huawei, and this is because Huaweioffers an interesting deal, so on average
it tends to be ten to thirtypercent cheaper than its Western competitors. And

(06:08):
at the same time, as youmentioned, like, Huawei comes with funding,
so often it has access to twoloans provided by China Development Bank,
so it's either the China Development Bankor the China x Bank, and this
has very much facilated facilitated Huawei accessto the African market and the market with

(06:31):
many other developing countries. And sowe're witnessing an important expansion of Huawei across
the region. It has built thebackbone infrastructure for most North African countries actually,
and because it played a significant rolein building three G networks and then

(06:53):
shift towards four G. Also it'svery likely that Huawei will be an imortant
player in the five G in theshift towards five G and so yeah,
recently we're seeing also a corporation emergingin the field of cloud computing and artificial
intelligence. Many developing countries are signingcorporation agreements with Huawei to cooperate and develop

(07:20):
AI capabilities, for instance, andsome of these countries include the United Arab
Emirates and Egypt, among others.So Huawei has a very important presence in
the region and it is definitely oneof the most significant actors to analyze when
looking at China's digital silk road inNorth Africa. Yeah. Absolutely, and

(07:46):
I mentioned Huawei, I mean firstbecause obviously it's part of your great paper,
but it's also really a hot buttonissue, especially in the US for
a lot of countries where they havesignificant cooperation agreements or even alliances with a
lot of countries in the region,and Huawei seems to be at the center
of a lot of that. Imean, for all of the protestations from

(08:07):
Huawei that's purely a commercial entity,there have been a lot of questions about
that narrative that it maybe isn't justa commercial actor. Maybe there are political
components to what Huawei is doing aswell. And we've seen several countries have
put up barriers to Huawei five Gnetwork equipment and others abandoned outright. Why

(08:28):
is it? Why is it thatyou know, some countries have a hard
time believing that this is you know, a commercial project or commercial company only.
Yeah, it's absolutely right, ButI feel that like this debate was
more important in high income countries thathave more options and the means to like,

(08:48):
you know, get other operators.But in developing countries, the deal
offered by firms like Huawei or ZiTIt's other Chinese campicheta are actually hard to
turned down. And so what we'vewitnessed is that there's been an antic like
there's been increased skepticism towards Huawei inrecent years in developed countries, especially during

(09:13):
the Trump administration. UH and inthe context of you know, like trade
war between China and the US UHand you know, the assumption is that
the Chinese state is using its techfirms to to spy on other countries,
and that this network equipment is usedby the Communist party to to access strategic

(09:37):
data and the realities that we don'thave any strongly empirical evidence showing that Huawei
is using its network equipment specifically tospy on others. And so, as
you mentioned, many believe, manyanalysts this as being you know, politically
motivated from the side of you know, Western countries and primarily the US,

(10:03):
a country that you know, isfeeling that it's closing in a way the
digital race, especially when it comesto five G, and so many see
this attack on Chinese tech as amotivated attack to actually help the commercial interests
of US tech farms when it comesto spying, I think it's a real

(10:26):
risk that nobody should you know,ignore. But then obviously there is this
important issue of like evidence of Chinaspying actually through the ADISA BIBA headquarters of
the African Union, and so there'san investigation that showed that that data was

(10:46):
going to to Shanghai every day,you know, between the headquarters of the
African Union and China. And thiswas a very important high level issue when
it comes to spying. But theUS or other allies are not any better.
So obviously there is the famous EdwardSnowden scandal, who showed that US

(11:09):
tech firms were actually stying on behalfof the of the US government for years
and across the world. More recently, there was the PIGUEZUS scandal that you
know, told us that Israel wasusing malware to pye on activists, politicians,
business leaders across the world. Sofor developing countries, even though the

(11:35):
security argument is important, often likethere is an acknowledgement that as long as
you don't develop your own local technologicalcapabilities and the ability to like have your
locally developed network infrastructure, foreign providers, whether the Chinese or American, are

(11:58):
very much likely you know, tocome with important concerns over overseeing security and
spying. This being said, um, yeah, like the Chinese are offering
such an interesting deal, you know, with the funding and all of that,
that no Western country has been abledespite some attempts to provide an alternative

(12:22):
deal that would help developing countries catchup in terms of digital infrastructure and help
their digital transformations. Yeah, soI really am quite an obvious at this
stuff. But that's one of thethings that I keep hearing about is that
what Chinese firms do is they comein with the entire stack. You know,
it's it's laying cables, it's providingthe hardware, it's providing the devices,

(12:46):
it's providing the software and the apps. It comes in as a complete
kit that allows countries to jump aheadrather than go through this very slow process
of building all the stuff and thenbuying the stuff to to fit with it.
You know, it just seems reallylike you say, it's it's it's
kind of too good to pass upfor a lot of countries. Yeah,
absolutely absolutely, And there is abig need to to, you know,

(13:09):
be on the technological edge. Developingcountries don't want to fall um, you
know, short from accessing some ofthe cutting edge technologies, and the Chinese
are providing an interesting deal, youknow, like the technology is cheaper and
it's not bad quality anymore. Maybeused to be in the early times.
But now firms like Huawei have beenable to provide really high quality equipment at

(13:35):
a competitive price. So it's it'shard to turn down these offers when you're
developing nations trying to to you know, move forward in your digital transformation.
Yeah. Absolutely, I think that'ssomething that really a lot of folks have
to keep in mind, is thatwhen you're trying to solve development issues and
you're trying to you know, buildthat capability for your for your population,

(14:00):
you know, you're not going tobe so concerned about where it's coming from.
Especially as you say, there's alwaysgoing to be vulnerabilities inherenton engaging with
foreign tech companies. I was goingto bring up snowdon but you beat me
to it. But we all knowhow you know, you know, social
media companies are using tech and arenot very m you know, above the
board way. And what I've talkedto people around the Middle East about this

(14:22):
and said, you know, doyou have concerns about Chinese tech companies using
your data? Like everybody does?You know, like if if Zuckerberg is
using it or if if always usingit, what does it matter to us?
Right? So, yeah, absolutely, this is often the issue is
like you know what, when yourequipment is far and often the question is
like about choosing who is going tospy on you, not whether one is

(14:46):
going to spy on you. Andand yeah, I think like for you
know, when we talk about datasovereignty and like data security, I think,
you know, the most kind ofpragmatic way is really to be able
to do what the Chinese did ina way and to develop in indigenous technologies

(15:07):
and firms to be able to reallyprotect national interest in natural data in that
sense. Okay, well I wantto step away. I mean, this
is really interesting to me because,like I said, I am a novice
and I really have to learn moreabout it. But I want to step
away from the tech for just aminute. Because your paper focus on North

(15:28):
Africa. You know, the countriesof North Africa, easy O, Blibya,
Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco. Howare China's relations with these countries?
This is our recent development or isthere a deep Chinese presence that's been there
for a long time that people justmaybe haven't paid a lot of attention to.
Well, that's a great question.China and North Africa have had really

(15:48):
long ties that can actually be tracedback to the early days of the People's
Republic of China. So during thefifties, the Chinese Communist Party backed liberation
movements across the region. And thismeant that you know, North African countries
have a sympathetic views towards China.So in Algeria, for instance, it

(16:15):
did support the FLN from the astronEstronale during the independence war against French colonialism.
In Egypt also it helped socialist movementsin the country and so gamel Ab
the NASA in nineteen fifty six inEgypt was actually the first African leader to

(16:37):
recognize the People's Republic of China.And so these are like long entrenched relations.
The Bandon Conference, obviously in nineteenfifty five was an important bounding moment
between China and Africa. It wasattended by all major North African countries and

(16:59):
leaders the time. However, duringthe seventies, eighties and up until the
nineties ties, economic ties where werevery week. It was only at the
turn of the century in the twothousands, when China adopted its going out
strategy and later joined the WTO intwo thousand and one, that China's economic

(17:22):
presence with North African countries starting startedbecoming more significant. So we've seen Chinese
investments in a myriad of sectors,including energy, agriculture, manufacturing, but
also the telecom sector. You know, this economic relationship is problematic in many

(17:44):
ways because it does reproduce many patternsof an equal exchange. So China tends
to export finished goods to North Africancountries and North African countries and to export
unprocessed low value added good to China. And this is just a reflection of
the nature of North African economies whichlack sophistication and diversification. But with the

(18:10):
BRI there is the hope, especiallywith the Digital Silk Road, that there
would be a qualitative shift in China'sengagement with the region. M yeah,
so just in terms, I mean, I think that's a good overview of
the historical trajectory and it tells ushow the state to state relations are.

(18:32):
But how about you know, thepeople to people's side of things. Do
people in North Africa generally perceive Chinapositively? Is there a familiarity? Are
a lot of people learning the language? Do they know a lot about the
culture and the history? Well,that's the thing I think there is a
mismatch between China's current economic presence inthe region and people so ams and knowledge

(18:55):
about about China. So, forinstance, China is the first economically trading
partner of Algeria, but the levelof knowledge by the average Algerian citizen of
Chinese culture, language, or historytends to be rather scant. And it's

(19:15):
the case across the region. Andthis is due to a myriad of reason.
But I would say that Chinese influenceand culture is lagging far behind Western
culture among ordinary citizens in North Africaand the Middle East. But there was
this survey actually in two thousand andten, I think, by the Arab

(19:38):
Barometer, and it showed that overallpeople across the Middle East and North Africa
had positive views of China. Andit showed that, for instance, in
Tunisia, over sixty percent of Tunisiansus said that they were willing to have

(19:59):
stronger econom ties with China. Andironically was the countries that had the strongest
ties to China, the like Egyptand Algeria for instance, that had the
lowest share of respondence saying that theywould be willing to have stronger ties with
China. I think that overall,China's positive image in the region is linked

(20:22):
to its economic model, and it'syou know, incredible development story as a
country that managed to lift out eighthundred million people out of poverty within like
four decades, and so it isobviously a model that citizens across the region
admire and look up to. However, I think that China's authoritarianism and its

(20:49):
treatment of the leg or population especiallycontribute to hindering China's image among local citizens.
Sure, I think the development aspectthat you've mentioned is something that people,
especially in the West, just don'tappreciate enough when they think why do
people look to China in this positiveway? And you think, look,

(21:11):
if you're a country that's suffered intocolonialism and then you've been suffering under the
prescriptive you know, Washington Census developmentmodels that haven't allowed your country to bridge
that gap, and then you seea country that forty years ago is one
of the poorest, least developed inthe world and they've managed to turn things
around like this. Of course you'regoing to say, how did you do
that? Like, you know,I think everybody looks at it as there's

(21:33):
something to learn here, and we'rewilling to listen, right, absolutely,
absolutely, It is this fascinating developmentstory. And you know, I think
both governments and citizens like look upChina. I think no, when you
look at income levels. Just yeah, four decades ago, many African countries
who had actually higher GDP per capitathan China, and things turned around very

(22:02):
fast. So obviously there are lessonsto learn that. The question of the
to what extent the Chinese model canbe reproduced elsewhere is another question. I
don't think, you know, manycountries don't have the institutional capacity, for
instance, to reproduce like the Chinesemodel, but there are definitely some interesting

(22:22):
policy lessons to learn that. Yeah, So not to get too deep into
the nerd weeds here, but MarianConrado at a really good chapter about the
China model, and that's one ofthe points you brought up, was that
a lot of countries would like tobe able to do this, but they
don't have the governmental capacity. Likeit takes a lot of resources, it
takes a very strong bureaucracy, ittakes a very strong state to be able

(22:45):
to do this, and there's justnot that many developing countries that are equipped
that way yet. Yeah, allimportant points. I mean, I remember
growing up because I was born innineteen seventy five, and we had only
visions of China as basically a poorplace, you know, growing up.
And when I talk to my students, who were all born around two thousand,

(23:08):
their visions of China growing up,we've all been largely positive, like,
oh, it's rich, it's powerful, it's really developed, I've got
great tech, and it's it's alsointeresting, I think for people of my
generation to realize people of your generationor younger have grown up with very different
perceptions. Absolutely. Well, Igrew up in Algis in the nineteen nineties,

(23:30):
and you know, at that time, already we started witnessing China's presence
and so yeah, and by theearly two thousands, most construction projects in
Algeria were conducted by Chinese fans.So it's very common to see Chinese workers
around, and clearly already we couldunderstand that, like, you know,

(23:52):
China was the next big thing,and I think it's one of the reasons
why I ended up learning Chinese atthe Universe City and living in Beijing for
some time. Yeah, okay,well, I've got to bring this back
to the digital silk road at somepoint. So this is maybe this is
the point, and we can talkabout your paper a little bit here,
looking specifically in North Africa, whatkind of projects are Huawei doing throughout the

(24:15):
region. I think your project oryour paper does a really good job of
outline this. And also are thereany countries that stand out as kind of
at the forefront of their engagement withChina and these types of things. Yeah,
well, Huawei has some significant projectsacross the region. So it played

(24:37):
a significant role in the upgrade fromtwo G to three G four G,
and now as I mentioned, it'svery likely that it will play a significantrol
in the upgrade towards five G acrossthe region. It's also playing a very
important role when we look at itsenterprise aspect, dealing with as in installing

(25:00):
data centers and cloud computing and cloudcapacities for firms. So, for instance,
in Algeria, Huawei recently signed acontract with so Nathak, the state
owned oil company, to install itsdata centers and manage its data that's now

(25:21):
going to be localized in Algeria.In Egypt, recently it started it signed
an important corporation agreement with the Egyptiangovernment to help the country develop its artificial
intelligence capability capabilities, and so ithas all these deals with different universities across

(25:42):
the region. It's organizing ICT competitionsand providing ICT certificates to engineering students and
so on. I think it has, unlike other firms other Western competitors,
closer ties to governments across the region. And it has done a very good

(26:03):
job branding itself as a strategic allyin the digital transformation of North African countries.
So, for instance, it hadlaunched some important development initiatives across the
region. This Huawei device factory thatwas established in Algiers in twenty nineteen.

(26:30):
In Egypt, it created an openlamp to conduct research and development activities,
and it has, as I said, signed partnerships to do research and training
with several local research institutes and universities. However, I mean we need to

(26:51):
keep in mind that this is obviouslya profit oriented entity, and like Huawei
is not doing any charitable work acrossthe region. It's obviously a self interested
actor that is trying to maximize itsprofit and so there were some issues around
for instance, the factory I justmentioned in Algeria, where the government had

(27:12):
concerns about the extent which there wasany value addition there. It seemed that
Huawei, like other firms actually manufacturingin the country, was importing kids that
were kind of you know, what'swhat we call semi knocked off kids or

(27:33):
complete knocked off kids, and sothat was like the last steps of the
manufacturing process, and there wasn't muchvalue addition. So at some point the
Engering government called this fictitious production anddisguised imputs, and so the factory had
to shut down along other factories.Actually it's the same thing doing interviews in

(27:55):
Egypt recently, the research and Developmentlab does not seem to be doing any
significant R and Z activities, andso often you have these uh Hawawei has
localized seemingly developmental activities, but thenin practice there is little technology transfer and
little value addition taking place within thesecountries. Ah see. So that's what

(28:22):
it's going to ask because you've mentionedearlier about the you know, real need
for you know, indigenous knowledge capacitybuilding, and you talk about these these
you know, Halwei campuses, andthe assumption I had was that that they'd
be contributing to to building this localcapacity to help these countries get from being
reliant on working with foreign companies andthen building their own but you're not seeing

(28:48):
that so much. Yeah, Sofrom my field work, what I've witnessed
is that there is training and theseICT academies are like fourishing and training thousands
of students across the region. However, the training is not contributing really to
you know, transferring technology that wouldhelp locally economies be more autonomous technologically and

(29:14):
upgrade and move towards higher added valueactivities within. But what we're seeing is
that there is training to basically teachfuture engineers across the region how to use,
maintain and troubleshoot HUAWE equipment, right, so providing training on how to
use their own equipment. And thisobviously creates the risk of developing new form

(29:37):
of dependencies. So you know,one of the big questions like are removing
from initial dependencies from mainly US technologiesand European technologies towards new form of dependencies
And yeah, this is an importantpoint I think that local governments need to
be concerned about. How about beyondHuawe. I mean you mentioned at the

(30:03):
beginning there's a lot of these Chinesetech giants that are operating all over the
region. Are there any that aretaking big noteworthy tech projects in North Africa?
Well, the Digital Silk Road intails a set of projects that are
important. One of the most important, I think in the region is the

(30:25):
tom j Tech smart City. Sothis is supposed to be a smart city
built on a very large area.Upon completion, it was set to host
over two hundred Chinese firms in highvalue added sectors such as aeronautic, telecoms,
automobile and so on. But itseems that there are some conflicts.

(30:48):
There were some conflicts between the initialChinese firms that was supposed to to build
the smart city and the Moroccan authorities. So the initial firm was highed,
I believe, and there were conflictover the ownership of the smart city.
And now the project has been significantlydownsized and there's another firm that took over

(31:11):
another Chinese firm actually that took overHitus contract. Talking about the Digital Silk
Road still in the region, thespace is an important aspect actually also of
the Digital Silk Road. And thereis a BAID satellite if I recon who
build the China Satellite Navigation Office oneof the first bai Do basically one of

(31:40):
the first bay Do satellite offices inthe region in Tunisia. That was through
a partnership with the Arab Information andCommunication Technology Organization, and so this is
an important monoflector. I believe it'sthe first of Baidu satellite facilities outside of
China. Know this was set upin Tunisia. In terms of surveillance equipment,

(32:06):
firms like HIGG Vision are making significantinroads across the region, so their
presence in Egypt, the UAE inAlgeria as well is very important. They
sell surveillance equipment like cameras and senses. In terms of e commerce, obviously

(32:30):
Ali Baba is the leader in theregion. Many use Ali Baba actually in
the Middle East to make purchases.Recently, Ali Baba has launched this new
important initiative called the e the ElectronicWorld Trade Platform, and the aim of

(32:51):
the platform is basically to facilitate umto facilitate access to e commerce for small
and medium size enterprises. So it'sbasically to integrate small and medium sized enterprises
in developing countries within you know,the global markets. So this is an
important initiative in terms of apps.You see writing apps such as dd taking

(33:17):
increasing increasing the important parts of thewriting app markets in places like Egypt,
and as I mentioned earlier, there'sa lot of Statuo state corporation and research
in artificial intelligence, big data,cloud computing. The UAE recently signed an

(33:38):
important deal with Huawei actually for corporationin artificial intelligence. Yeah, AI is
driving so much, especially you knowin the age of COVID, where that's
been really important in a lot ofyou know, things that they've been trying
to to trying to deal with thepandemic. This is this is all really

(34:04):
interesting because I see a similar patternwhen you talk about a lot of Chinese
development projects in the larger bri especiallyhere in the Gulf, where we'd hear
eleven billion dollars committed to you know, Ducomenoman and then five years later you
go like, wow, there's justone factory. So far, there hasn't
really been a lot happened yet,not to say it won't, but so
far it's been pretty slow, andI think that's a pretty consistent with a

(34:25):
lot of Chinese overseas development in generalis big splash emous followed by slow implementation
or maybe no implementation, whether it'sdisagreements between the host government or whether it's
not understanding local environment. There's beenenough time that's passed to give us a
sense of the trajectory of the DSRNorth Africa. So are you seeing a

(34:49):
lot of that, Are things,you know, maybe a little more modestly
right sized or are our things stillfull steam ahead? Do you think you
know there's still the same appetite forcooperation with joining this type of stuff.
Well, I know you completely right. Like this whole plan of like you
know, announcing huge investment projects andthen not having much in the end.

(35:15):
This is actually very common, notjust among the Chinese. I think it's
a well research and known kind ofpractice to kind of like come say,
hey, we're investing so much,We're coming with this huge project, signing
all these agreements and then just facilitatessome you know, contracts for Chinese firms
or other firms depending on the project. And we've clearly seen a lot of

(35:37):
that across North Africa as well.In terms of appetite, I think governments
across the region do see the Beltand Word initiative as a golden opportunity to
you know, improve infrastructure to getsome investment to create hopefully jobs for the
millions of unemployed across the region andthe SR. The digital silk road is

(36:01):
especially important because it can you know, it brings the promise of creating jobs
in the high tech sector. AndNorth Africa especially is characterized by the millions
of university graduates who do not manageto find jobs. Many of them are
telecom engineers or like computer scientists andsomeone and and so it is seen as

(36:27):
an important initiative. It also helpsyou know, countries catch up in terms
of digital infrastructure. Then the extentto which it is truly helping you know,
development, that is like structural transformation, you know, the move away
from low value added activities to highvalue activities is another debate and is more

(36:50):
challenging. And this I think wouldreally depend on the capacity of local governments
to to you know, leaverage,like the presence of Chinese tech giants,
to to extract more technology to createmore job opportunities and to have them localize
truly developmental activities. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean for a lot of countries,

(37:15):
whatever into the spectrum they're on umin terms of development or wealth.
I mean, tech is seen asthe silver bullet that can really address a
lot of their problems. I'm goingto name drop one of my friends here
to see if you actually listen tothis podcast. But I have a friend
from Singapore named Doug, and healways talks to me about how when he
meets with them RADI officials. Onething they're so fascinated by is that Singapore

(37:36):
open this new terminal in their airport, this massive new terminal. I don't
know if you've seen it, butit's got like a waterfall, and it's
got a rainforest and it's it's it'sridiculous. People go there. They drive
to the airport just to hang outin this terminal. But the interesting thing
is they've done this without hiring newnew new staff because they've they've just used
their their I to find ways tomanage their workloads in a more efficient way

(38:02):
so that they can open this wholenew terminal without having to hire a bunch
of new people. And in aplace like the UAE, which is so
dependent on foreign labor, to thinkthat they could use AI to manage these
these you know, human resources issuesis very attractive. And you know what
you're describing North Africa, where You'vegot a bunch of highly trained young people

(38:23):
at a new jobs and if theycan, they can get these jobs through
DSRI initiatives, and I think,of course they're going to going to jump
at this. Um. Yeah,this will be interesting to see. If
Doug actually says he's he's heard thispart, I'm going to check with him.
But I just want to ask,like, what do you think all

(38:43):
this tells us about the bigger pictureof China North Africa? Does this look
like a sustainable, long term relationshipit does it does it portend deeper engagement
on other realms or does this seemlike, you know, a passing fancy.
I think it's clearly not a passingpanty. You know, as I

(39:04):
mentioned earlier, China and North Africahave long entrenched relations, like deeply rooted
in history, and North African countrieswe look at governments look at China as
it's like big brother that made it, you know, and so there is
this interest in you know, cooperatingwith China, learning from China because it's
it's a recent development history and soit's it's different from European countries or other

(39:32):
high income countries. The thing isthat now we're not sure to what extent
China is ready to move forward withmany of like the promises. In terms
of investment, we've seen less appetitefrom Beijing to invest in large scale infrastructure.
And I think, however, thatthe telecom sector and like data data

(39:57):
oriented initiatives will remain as as keya key sector of collaboration between North African
countries and China. Then, asI said, the extent to which North
African countries managed to to really maximizegains from China's presence in the region will
depend on their own policies and theircapacity to really compel foreign capital to engage

(40:25):
in a developmental way. And inthis sense, there's the big issue of
a regional integration because we're having allthese small North African countries and African countries
in general negotiating with you know,China today the second biggest ecount and I

(40:49):
think that, yeah, this isvery much an issue that needs to be
tackled, and more integration at acontinental level could really help level the playing
field between African countries and China andhopefully get trade agreements and investment agreements that

(41:10):
profit local economy is more. Thishas been great I could do this for
another hour, but I can't,unfortunately, but thanks so much. I
really encourage all of our listeners togo and download your your pourth Carnegie.
We're going to include a link toit on the show page. It's really
good if you're if you're trying toget a handle on the DSRII, or

(41:34):
if you just want to learn moreabout what China's doing in North Africa.
I think it's a really really greatpaper for this. Do you have anything
else that you're working now that you'dlike to share forthcoming work or well,
I'm working currently on my PhD thesisthat looks at Chinese digital investments across the
region, and so yeah, hopefullyin a year or so be able to

(41:58):
to publish my thesis. But yeah, until then, hope you have some
shorter term papers coming up. Rightuntil then, That's that's the big focus,
right, it's get this this bigbeast out of your life. Well,
good luck with that. I can'twait to see it and read it
as a published book someplace or abunch of papers. I'm sure it's gonna

(42:19):
be awesome. Thanks a lunch,and thanks a lot for having me on
the show. Was a pleasure.Thank you. I'm glad for our listeners.
Thank you for joining us, followus on social media, Subscribe and
rate the show on iTunes, Spotify, a stitcher, wherever you podcast and
I'll see you next show. Thankyou very much. Produced by Hardcast Media.

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