Why Africa should be taking notes as the US battles Chinese technology.
TikTok and WeChat are some of the latest apps to be targeted as the Trump administration moves to limit the dominance of Chinese technology in the US. Concerned by the meteoric rise of the TikTok app and its exploding popularity among Americans, Trump recently issued an ultimatum to the app makers. Either sell their US business to a US entity or face an outright ban from the market. There was also something about the US government getting a cut of the sale price once a deal was agreed with a US buyer. These terms, while criticized by various parties, are simply an escalation of an ongoing trade and tech war between the world’s largest economies. And while TikTok is the one currently under the cross-hairs, other Chinese apps such as WeChat are also targeted under the wide ranging policy.
That technology is an integral part of modern foreign policy is not lost on anybody. To think that the tech war going on between the US and China is solely down to Donald Trump’s belligerence is to lose sight of the bigger geopolitical and economic game at play. Technology has come to rule the world. It shapes how people communicate, transact and interact. Beyond that, it allows mass surveillance and the collection of huge troves of data that can be used for a variety of purposes, both benevolent and nefarious. Social media platforms have proven to be effective information control tools, with the power to not only profile people to a high degree of accuracy but also feed them information that can alter their world perception. In short technology has opened the battlefield for the hearts and minds of the masses, and no nation wants to yield such power to another.
Trump is right to speculate that the Chinese government somehow have access to the endless stream of data being collected by TikTok through a secret backdoor. He worries about this because his own government and its intelligence agencies have ways of tapping into American apps and harvesting such data from users across the world. The selfless acts by whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange gave us a view into how big tech is used as a tool of global espionage by various spy agencies, most of the time under questionable legal premise. Other examples of the power of tech to control populations abound in social experiments done across the globe.
The resounding success of mass programming demonstrated by Cambridge Analytica leaves no room for doubt that information manipulation can be used to control voting patterns and upstage democracy. The fueling of the Arab spring by Tweets and use of the Twitter platform in organizing other protests around the world have shown that regimes can be toppled from a million mobile screens. Meanwhile proliferation of misinformation and the so-called ‘fake news’ have proven that the truth can be contorted into whatever shape one wishes so long as they have enough trolls on their side. And globally, super powers are fighting digital battles as state-backed hacking groups strive to outmaneuver each other and infiltrate the networks of their rivals to steal information.
In the world of business, tech companies are indisputably the most valuable stocks to hold, straight from blue-chips to startups. The wealthiest men in the world right now head tech companies, and powerful nations know that their domination of the tech space cements their position at the top. This is why none of them will allow the other to dominate their markets. Along with the national security issues raised above, the control of lucrative tech markets that will form the backbone of the global GDP in years to come is a critical issue for both the Americans and the Chinese.
The US will fight a company like Huawei for national security reasons but also for the fact that it might dominate the US market if given a chance. This would lead to the Chinese gaining an even stronger foothold in the US economy and globally, a feared outcome in Washington. Which is why the US has been lobbying its allies around the world to reject Huawei technology in their 5G networks, going as far as holding a top executive of the company hostage as a bargaining chip in the tech war. It is clear that the nation that dominates the tech scene of the other will win the power to influence the politics and both the social and economic stability of its rival. There is a reason the Chinese don’t allow foreign social media platforms access to their markets.
As nascent players in the tech world, African nations should be watching keenly and taking notes as the super-powers battle it out on the cyber battle ground. We should be considering all the ways domination of our tech scene by foreigners will hurt Africa in years to come, as the world fully transitions into the information age. We should be asking questions about what the balance of trade will look like several decades from now, if we remain net consumers of technology from foreign companies. Companies that are registered abroad and repatriate all their profits from the African nations where they operate. We should be asking what local techies and innovators will do if startup opportunities are usurped by a foreign elite that restricts capital but has unrestricted access to our markets. Such considerations should form part of the conversation when negotiating bilateral trade agreements, particularly with the Western world.
Perhaps more importantly we should be thinking of the security implications of our wholesome embrace of foreign tech in an age when social unrest and anarchy are routinely instigated online. An age where the masses can be brainwashed to advance either consumerism or political agendas. We need to better protect our data and regulate how foreign companies are allowed to use data collected from Africa. The European Union has enacted legislation such as GDPR and we in Africa need to come up with similar protections at the AU level. Policy makers need to examine the tech industry from a strategic perspective covering economics, national security, equal opportunities for the youth among many other parameters.
Contribution to GDP and drawing in investors to create jobs should only be one part of a much bigger criteria that ensures the continent and its nations take charge of their technological destiny. With this in mind, the strategic implication of the foreign domination of the tech industry in a country such as Kenya needs to be carefully considered. Hopefully those working on such policy in Africa can take notes from the sparring super-powers, and figure out how best to apply the lessons learnt back home.
