US threatens to de-fund Africa disease control program over Chinese influence

February 7, 2020 by Joseph Fitsanakis

The United States has threatened to pull its funding for an Africa-wide disease control program if the African Union decides to accept an offer from China to build the program’s new headquarters. The dispute accentuates a growing competition between Washington and Beijing to exert political control in Africa and places the African Union at the center of a difficult dilemma.

The quarrel concerns the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or Africa CDC, a network of five biomedical research hubs that are located in Zambia, Kenya, Gabon, Nigeria and Egypt. The network was established in 2017 in response to the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in western Africa. Its mission is to gather data that can help monitor and contain disease outbreaks and other health crises throughout the continent. The network’s central hub is located at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Africa CDC is an initiative of the African Union, but it is partly funded by outside countries and bodies, including China, the United States, and the World Bank. Washington supported the establishment of Africa CDC with a donation of $14 million, and an offer to pay the project director’s salary, as well as assign scientists to work there from the US CDC. But the United States has expressed concerns about a recent offer by China to double its funding of Africa CDC and to build a the organization’s new headquarters, at the cost of $80 million. Foreign affairs ministers from the African Union’s 55 states began discussing Beijing’s offer on Thursday during a meeting in Ethiopia.

There are some among them who question China’s intentions. They refer to news reports that surfaced in the French press in 2018, according to which the Chinese-built headquarters of the African Union was comprehensively ‘bugged’ by Beijing. According to the reports, the $200 million, 19-storey skyscraper in the Ethiopian capital was hardwired with computer servers that secretly communicate with Chinese government computers, without the consent of African Union network managers.

On Thursday The Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous United States government official, who said that “if the Chinese build the headquarters [of Africa CDC], the US will have nothing to do with” the organization. The African Union has not commented on The Journal’s article.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 February 2020 | Permalink