China spied on African Union, using Huawei equipment; China & US
spy on each other
Newsletter published on April 6, 2019
(1)
Afghan War: Desertions
(2)
Time to wind up NATO
(3)
The Economist & Israel back U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela
(4)
Venezuela, a new Syria; Putin sends military mission to head off US
Coup
(5)
China & US spy on each other
(6)
Huawei's lead in 5G; but Huawei equipment was used to bug African
Union
(7)
China spied on African Union, using Huawei equipment
(8)
China rejects claim it bugged headquarters it built for African
Union
(9)
African Union Bugged by China - CFR
(1)
Afghan War: Desertions
From: Eric Walberg <walberg2002@yahoo.com>
Subject: Review: Bergdahl: Reluctant soldier - confused
peacenik
Bergdahl's desertion (he eventually ignored
his defence lawyer and pleaded guilty) set in motion a domino effect on a
massive scale, but not the one the prosecution tried to pin on him: that B’s
desertion led to soldiers’ deaths. The early angry accusations soon melted under
examination, leaving B’s actions as a butterfly effect in a chaotic
world.
Review: Bergdahl: Reluctant soldier -
confused peacenik
Thursday, 04 April 2019 12:05
Eric Walberg
(2)
Time to wind up NATO
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2019 8:23
AM
Subject: NATO
Attached article below fits my perspective
on NATO. When I was a kid my dad was stationed in Germany several times and once
a year he would participate in war games to keep us safe from
the Ruskies.
When I was stationed in Fulda Germany after
Vietnam, a news crew filmed me walking the East German border, keeping America
safe. It was aired in Tampa on Channel
ten, I still have the 16mm film. Problem
was I was an aircraft mechanic, I was never near enough to see the border from
the ground, the clip was filmed at our base in Fulda. It was a typical propaganda film designed to
help keep Americans afraid and keep the military industrial complex
satiated. This kind of propaganda is
still prevalent in America today along with the Army commercials that glorify
killing people. The commercials should
say, join the Army, travel to foreign lands, meet new people.... and kill them.
I agree with most of the article below
except only a fool would believe that Russia is not just as capable to protect
herself as she was before the wall came down.
How many nukes does it take to decimate an economy? Far fewer than the Russians can deploy. Right now this country is surrounded by
nuclear subs capable of destroying all of our major cities and we are capable of
doing the same thing to Russia and China.
Nothing has changed, just not even the rhetoric.
(3)
The Economist & Israel back U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela
February 03, 2019
U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela Lacks
International Support
There is little doubt where 'western' media
stand with regards to the U.S. led coup-attempt (vid) in Venezuela. But their
view does not reflect the overwhelming international recognition the Venezuelan
government under President Nicolás Maduro continues to have.
The Rothschild family's house organ, the
Economist, changed the background of its Twitter account to a picture of the
Random Dude™, Juan Guaidó, who the
U.S. regime changers created to run the country.
The tweet is quite revealing:
The Economist @TheEconomist - 23:59 utc- 31
Jan 2019 Juan Guaidó and Donald Trump are betting that sanctions will topple the
regime before they starve the Venezuelan people
econ.st/2DMOeEk
It is quite obvious that Trump’s Illegal
Regime Change Operation Will Kill More Venezuelans. The Economist supports that
starvation strategy.
[...] The U.S. is now trying some gambit
over 'aid' it wants to deliver to the opposition in Venezuela. National Security
Advisor John Bolton originally planned to deliver it through the Red
Cross:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last
Saturday that we would be prepared to donate an initial $20 million dollars to
the Red Cross, to the UN High Commission for Refugees. So we’re looking at all
this very carefully. But the Red Cross rejected such politicization of its
traditionally neutral role:
Alexandra Boivin, ICRC delegation head for
the United States and Canada, said the ICRC had told U.S. officials that
whatever plans "they have to help the people of Venezuela, it has to be shielded
from this political conversation." ... ICRC director of global operations
Dominik Stillhart said the committee would only take part in such coordinated
efforts if they are executed "with the agreement of the authorities, whoever the
authorities are." A new scheme was though out:
[Random Dude] said that in the coming days,
the opposition would try to move humanitarian aid into the country by land and
sea along three border points, including the Colombian city of Cucuta. He
described the move as a "test" for Venezuela’s armed forces, which will have to
choose if they allow the much needed aid to pass, or if they instead obey the
orders of Maduro’s government.
The 'aid' must be thoroughly checked before
it enters the country and the government should take care to distribute it
evenly. During the war on Syria so
called 'humanitarian aid' from Turkey, Israel and Jordan was used as cover for
large scale weapon and munition transports which mostly ended up in the
hands of Jihadists.
So far the Venezuelan military proved to be
solidly in the camp of the government. Two officers, a military attache in the
Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC and an air force general who fled to
Columbia, are the only known defectors. Both had office jobs and did not command
any operational units. This analysis provides that without military support the
coup attempt is unlikely to be successful. ...
The U.S. failed to get sufficient
international support for its recognition of Random Dude as president of
Venezuela. So far only Canada, Israel and 14 Latin American states took its
side. A few European nations are slowly following.
But no international organization supports
the position. Mexico and Uruguay, both members of the Lima group - a 'coalition
of the willing' created by Canada, rejected to recognize Guaido and called
instead for new elections. Secretary of State Pompeo's attempt to get the
Organization of American States (OAS) on his side failed:
The efforts were unsuccessful, garnering
only 16 favourable votes out of the 34 countries, with US allies Guyana, Santa
Lucia, and Jamaica abstaining. The United Nations Secretary General Guterres
announced that the UN only recognizes the Maduro government. Italy blocked a European Union recognition
of the Random Dude while the EU parliament, which has no power in foreign
policies, followed the U.S. position. The EU now only demands new elections to
be held sometime in the future. The African Union supports Maduro and spoke out
against the coup attempt. Russia, China, NATO member Turkey, South Africa, Iran
and Syria spoke in support of the Maduro government.
The media are misleading on the
international support. On February 1 Reuters headlined EU states move to
recognize Venezuela's Guaido: diplomats. But the piece itself contradicts the
headline. It found only four out of twenty eight EU states, Britain, France,
Germany and Spain, that were expected to announce support. On February 4 the
Washington Post headlined European nations recognize Guaido as Venezuelan leader
but the report says that only Spain, France and Sweden took that step. The
Guardian also headlines: EU countries recognise Juan Guaidó as interim
Venezuelan leader but names only five countries, Spain, France, the UK, Sweden
and Denmark, one of which is poised to leave the EU.
In total the 'international support' the
U.S. led coup attempt has gained so far is quite thin. It has no international
legitimacy. Unfortunately only few if any of the 'western' media will point that
out.
Posted by b on February 3, 2019 at 12:31
PM
(4)
Venezuela, a new Syria; Putin sends military mission to head off US
Coup
From: israel shamir <israel.shamir@gmail.com>
Venezuela, a new Syria, by Israel
Shamir
APRIL 2, 2019
A few days ago, an Ilyushin IL-62M liner <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/25/russian-military-officials-arrive-in-venezuela-to-discuss-training-and-strategy>
carried over a hundred Russian soldiers
and officers to Caracas. Symbolically, they made a stopover in Syria, as if
saying that Venezuela is the next country after Syria to be saved from ruin and
dismemberment. The military mission was led by the Head of General Staff,
General Tonkoshkurov (“Thin-Skinned”, a name that would thrill Vladimir
Nabokov).
‘Don’t you dare, exclaimed John Bolton,
meddle in the Western Hemisphere! Hands off Venezuela! It is our back yard!’ The
Russians didn’t buy it. Some time ago they tried to object to the US tanks being
positioned in Estonia, a brief drive from St Petersburg, and all they’ve got
was preaching that sovereignty means sovereignty, and Estonia does not have to
ask for Russian permission to receive American military assistance. Now they
repeated this American sermon verbatim to John Bolton and his boss. Get out of
Syria first, they added.
This is a new level in the Russian-American
relations, or should we say confrontation. For a very long time, the Russians convinced themselves that their
liking for the United States was mutual, or at least would be returned one
day. However, this stage is over, the scales fell off their eyes and they finally realised America’s implacable
enmity. ‘These Russians are really dumb if it dawned on them only now’,
you’d murmur. It is enough to read comments to the <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/24/us/politics/trump-robert-mueller.html>
New York Times piece regarding Mueller’s exoneration of Trump to learn that
hatred to Russia is a staple diet of American elites, on a par with love to
Israel. That’s what we are.
But Russians had an opposing tradition.
Russians had had tender feelings for the great nation beyond the ocean in the
days of Tsars, in the Soviet days, and even more so in post-Soviet years. They
liked America’s derring-do, its hardy pioneers, farmers, jazz, Hollywood. They
compared American “Go West, young man” with their own exploration of Siberia.
They compared their fast-growing cities to Chicago. Khrushchev admired the corn
and called upon his people to compete with America peacefully. Russian
Westernised educated classes (“intelligentsia”) sided with the US during Vietnam
war and through the Middle East wars.
This love for America had been so entrenched
that there were (practically) no
Russian/Soviet movies with American villains. That’s right – there is no
equivalent to <http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141106-why-are-russians-always-bad-guys>
Rambo’s antagonists, or to Igor of classic horror. Americans in Russian films
are good guys – with a very few exceptions of B-movies. ‘We don’t trust Russia;
we never will. They’re never going to be our friend… We’re going to kick them
every single time.’- these memorable words of <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5987861/Nikki-Haley-says-Russia-NEVER-going-friend-despite-Trump-cozying-Putin.html>Nikki
Haley had no Russian counterpart, and this sentiment wasn’t known in
Russia.
Now it is likely to change. The latest
Russian action movie <https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/517093?language=en-US>
The Balkan Line presented a Russian commando team operating in Bosnia and Kosovo
against NATO allies, Kosovo organ-harvesting Islamists – along the lines of the
Turkish thriller <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/valley_of_the_wolves_iraq>The
Valley of the Wolves. It came out timely, at the anniversary of the Belgrade
bombing, the most traumatic event for post-Soviet Russians. When Clinton ordered
the bombing of Russian ally and coreligionist Serbia, despite Russian pleas and
intercession, the Russians understood that their regime change had brought
calamity on their heads. Russian PM Primakov learned of Clinton decision en
route to Washington, and he ordered his plane to make a <https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-mar-24-mn-20482-story.html>
U-turn over the Atlantic. In a few months, Putin took over the Russian
presidency, and Russia began its more assertive, but still America-friendly
course.
However, the US insisted on treating Russia as a
defeated state, like Iraq after Saddam or Japan in 1945. That was too much.
Russians could accept being treated as a vassal, but an important vassal, a
vassal to pay heed and listen to. The <https://www.rt.com/news/392022-putin-stone-us-alqaeda-chechnya/>
support of Islamist insurgency in Chechnya or encouragement of Georgian
aggression was not the way an upright suzerain may treat his vassal. The link
snapped.
Until recently, we had Putin’s version of
what went wrong – it was presented in his <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6840134/>
interviews with Oliver Stone. Now we have the American version, and amazingly,
it isn’t different as facts go. The American version of events had been
presented by <https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/william-j-burns-putin-russia/583255/>
William J Burns, a veteran American diplomat and the Ambassador to Moscow. It
had been summarised by <https://www.brown.edu/academics/slavic-studies/about/people/vladimir-golstein>
Vladimir Golstein of Brown University:
1. Russia was expected to act like US
obedient junior partner.
“America thought that Moscow would
eventually get accustomed to being our junior partner, and grudgingly
accommodate NATO expansion even up to its border with Ukraine. Alas,
President Bill Clinton’s push for the eastward expansion of NATO reinforced
Russian resentment.” – Surprise, surprise!
2. Russia expected a quid pro quo for its
support of the US in the wake of 9/11, but “Putin fundamentally misread American
interests and politics. The Bush administration had no desire—and saw no
reason—to trade anything for a Russian partnership against al-Qaeda. It had
little inclination to concede much to a declining power.”
3. Americans paid no attention to Russian
warnings. The ambassador tells of Putin warning him to hold back the maverick
Georgian president from attacking Russian clients, but this warning had been
ignored.
4. The US-led regime change in Libya
“unnerved Putin; he reportedly watched the grisly video of the demise of the
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi—caught hiding in a drainage pipe and killed by
Western-backed rebels—over and over again”. Apparently, at that point Putin
understood finally that there is no way to survive unless he asserts Russian
position.
After the RussiaGate, enmity between the old
adversaries rose to unprecedented heights.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsz7IuZ3paM>
Non, Je ne regrette rien, and in particular I do not regret that
Russian-American relations have gone from bad to worse. The world needs balance,
and Russians do provide a counterweight to the heavy-handed Uncle Sam. The worst
time in recent history was around 1990, when Russia practically ceased to exist
as an important factor of international politics. Then, the US stormed over
Panama and Iraq, bombed Belgrade, created al Qaeda, and destroyed its own
working class. If uppity darkie bus driver Maduro would try to say ‘no’ to
Washington in 1990s, he would be kidnapped, arrested, tried for, say, child
abuse or drugs trafficking and jailed for thirty years. The then Russian
president Yeltsin wouldn’t even notice between his drunken bouts that Venezuela
had reverted to direct colonial rule.
Fortunately, Russia and the US are barely on
speaking terms, and countries wishing to escape the imperial diktat have a
choice. Venezuela is on the line. President Maduro stressed that the Russian
military advisers’ visit had been arranged for a long time in advance. Though
technically true, during the last month the Russian position changed noticeably.
When the US blocked Venezuelan bank accounts, Maduro said they moved their
accounts to the Russian GazPromBank. The Russian oilmen were visibly unhappy
about his revelation. I spoke to a top manager of an oil company who bewailed
the incautious words of Maduro. “Our
bank will come under the US sanctions, and we shall be ruined, – he said. –
Why couldn’t Maduro keep his mouth shut? We would manage his account, but
quietly, without challenging Americans”. Other important Moscow officials said
that Venezuela is lost anyway, and it’s better to forget about it.
But the visit of Venezuelan Vice President Señora Delcy
Rodriguez to Moscow had changed the mood. This elegant and dynamic lady is
an excellent and convincing speaker. She made a <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6U-v6cGozk>
star appearance in press conference with Sergey Lavrov. In a few well-chosen
words she unmade the web of lies woven around her country. Despite sanctions, Venezuela lives better
than its neighbours Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras. There are six million
Colombian economic and political refugees in Venezuela; and they do not want to
go back to their country. They prefer to suffer in socialist Venezuela. Now,
when thousands of Central Americans are trekking to Rio Grande, the US should
take care of them instead of worrying about Venezuela. The current exodus occurs
in the most obliging client-states of Washington. We also learned that the US
stole $31 billion of Venezuelan assets and gave 1 (one) billion to the Random
Guy they appointed as Venezuelan President.
For a few days, Russia hesitated. The proponents of a pro-American line are
quite powerful in Moscow, and they called for dropping Caracas. They
reminded people of a real and imminent danger: the US can block Russian dollar
assets and forbid all dollar transactions for Russian companies. This sort of
warfare had been tried against North Korea and Iran with devastating
effect.
Russians expect this move; for this reason
they beef up their gold reserves and sell their US bonds and obligations. They
expect it to happen, sooner or later, but they would rather postpone it as long
as possible.
However, despite this treat, Putin decided to support Venezuela’s
Maduro. Thus a new level in the hybrid war had been broken. Venezuelans had moved the headquarters of
their oil company to Moscow, and defiant Russia has accepted
them.
The US immediately responded by cyber-attacking Venezuelan power
stations and causing an extensive blackout. It is probably the first
large-scale cyber-attack upon the infrastructure of an enemy. The destruction of
Iranian centrifuges by means of <https://www.bbc.com/timelines/zc6fbk7>
Stuxnet was still limited in scope and did not interfere with the general
economy. The Venezuela electric grid had been recently updated and extensively
modernised by the big international company ABB. When the upgrading was done,
the company said in its press release that now Venezuela has the best and most
advanced electric equipment. Apparently, the most advanced equipment is more
vulnerable to cyber threats.
Every Washington-organised regime change in Latin America usually
included an attack on the power grid (for instance,
removal of Chile’s Allende), but until now the adversary had to dirty his hands
physically, by sabotaging power stations and transmission lines. Now they have learned how to do it from
outside, from Miami. Venezuelans <https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/03/11/venezuela-under-attack-7-notes-on-electric-shock-special-report/>
noticed that the first warning of their blackout had been made by Marco Rubio:
“Marco Rubio <http://globovision.com/article/marco-rubio-venezolanos-viviran-la-mas-severa-escasez-de-alimentos-y-gasolina>announced
hours before the blackout that “Venezuelans will live the most severe shortage
of food and gasoline,” revealing he had knowledge that some kind of shock would
happen in the next few hours.” The Moon of Alabama also <https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/venezuela-three-total-blackouts-in-three-days-government-presumes-us-cyberattack.html>
accepts the cyber-attack explanation, though hedges it by reminding that ‘shit
happens’, and the US has also experienced blackouts.
I asked a Russian expert on cyber warfare,
and he told me that a cyber-attack on infrastructure is feasible. He connected
it with the US struggle against the Chinese communication giant Huawei: it is the only major manufacturer
that provides no backdoor for NSA spying operations.
Russians decided to give Venezuela a helping
hand. They had sent cyber experts, a
military mission; they buy Venezuela’s oil and break American boycott of the
Bolivarian republic. They also help Iran
to go through sanctions.
Russians have few ambitions. They do not
want to rule the world, or even to dominate their neighbours. They do not want
to fight the Empire. They would be content to be left in peace. But if pushed,
and now they are being pushed, they will respond. In Russian view, even the most
hostile American politicians will desist before the Doomsday collision. And if
not, let it be.
Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net
This article was first published at The Unz
Review. ==
(5)
China & US spy on each other
Even After a Trade Deal, Be Wary of China
When an agreement is reached, President Trump may hail it as a triumph. But
other big problems need attention.
By Nicholas Kristof
April 3, 2019
President Trump and President Xi Jinping of
China will probably soon reach a trade agreement, but that won't solve the
biggest problems.
The Chinese regime is interning people based
on religion in a more systematic way than any other regime since perhaps the
Nazis. Its tolerance of fentanyl trafficking leads to some 20,000 drug overdose
deaths in the United States each year. It steals intellectual property and
ratchets up persecution at home.
I lived in China, speak Chinese and deeply
admire the country. Yet I am increasingly repulsed by Xi’s China, for he is
dragging the country in the wrong direction by imprisoning lawyers, journalists
and people of faith; tightening controls over the internet; creating
international security risks in the South China Sea; and fostering a personality
cult around himself.
In fairness, it’s also true that the Chinese
government has helped lift more people out of poverty than any other government
in human history. Just since 1990, the mortality rate for children under 5 has
fallen in China by 83 percent — suggesting, by my calculations, that an
additional 676,000 Chinese children survive each year who previously would have
died. [Follow Nicholas Kristof as he travels around the United States and the
world, shedding light on crises and hailing unsung heroes. For a
behind-the-scenes look at Nick’s gritty journalism, sign up for his
newsletter.]
Those of us who condemn China for human
rights violations must also acknowledge this uncomfortable truth: A child born in Beijing today has a
substantially longer life expectancy (82 years) than a child born in Washington,
D.C. (77 years).
In short, the Xi regime is complicated. It
cheats, oppresses and brutalizes, but it also educates, enriches and saves
lives.
I’ve seen the worst of China: I was on Tiananmen Square in 1989 when
troops opened fire on the crowd I was in. I’ve also seen the best:
impoverished families in western China
moving out of caves into modern homes and sending their children to
universities. I used to believe that China was best approached with ambivalence,
but in the last few years the ambivalence has faded into wariness.
When a trade deal is reached, President
Trump may hail it as a triumph, and it will probably result in announcements of
Chinese purchases of American goods. A trade deal is a good thing, but I hope
that the United States will work with allies and firmly stand up to China on
three issues in particular. First, to the extent possible, we should try to curb
Chinese high-technology firms’ access to Western markets. These businesses are a
security threat, and the Trump administration is right to be concerned. If a
company like Huawei is asked to cooperate with Chinese State Security spies, its
executives simply can’t say no.
This doesn’t mean that China is evil. American companies sold telecommunications
equipment to China beginning in the 1980s that let us intercept officials’
conversations there, and we have
inserted cyber “back doors” into goods and software sold to China so that we
can cause damage in the event of a conflict. China purchased a Boeing 767 in 2000 to be
its presidential jet and it arrived riddled with listening devices.
[...]
(6)
Huawei's lead in 5G; but Huawei equipment was used to bug African
Union
Keep the Chinese government away from 5G
technology
By
Tom Cotton and John Cornyn
April 1
Tom Cotton, a Republican, represents
Arkansas in the U.S. Senate. John Cornyn, a Republican, represents Texas in the
U.S. Senate. They are both members of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence.
China’s premier telecommunications company,
Huawei, has risen to power through a combination of force, fraud and
coordination with the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei has stolen valuable
technology — and has allegedly stolen more, including the recent case of a
high-tech robot arm — to get a leg up on the competition.
Now, Huawei is constructing a global network of
undersea Internet cables and next-generation mobile networks that could give
China effective control of the digital commanding heights.
Our European allies, including Britain, are
deciding whether to allow Huawei to build their 5G wireless networks, which will
soon facilitate everything from industrial manufacturing to NATO military
communications. For Europe’s sake and for the transatlantic alliance, our allies
must keep Huawei as far from their 5G networks as possible. Adopting Chinese 5G
technology will force the United States to reevaluate long-standing intelligence
and military partnerships to protect our security interests.
Some countries, such as Germany, have
already indicated they’ll allow Chinese technology into their 5G networks.
Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly wants assurances from Beijing that it won’t
spy on Germany in exchange for using Huawei technology. This “no-spying
agreement” will be as effective at abolishing spying as the Kellogg-Briand Pact
was at abolishing war.
Other European leaders claim that the risks
posed by Huawei can be “managed” through vigilance and oversight. But the most
effective way to mitigate risk is to avoid it in the first place. If you want to
keep your enemies at bay, don’t let in the Trojan horse.
The African Union learned the hard way to
be wary of strangers bearing gifts. Its
$200 million headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was a “gift” financed,
constructed and outfitted by China with Huawei servers. Last year, African
Union engineers alleged those servers had funneled massive amounts of sensitive data
to China every night for years — a stunning cybertheft reportedly
supplemented by old-fashioned listening devices found in the walls of the
Chinese-built facility. The African Union was forced to replace its servers and
implement new security measures at great expense. It declined an offer from
Huawei engineers to configure the new system; once burned, twice shy.
[...]
Huawei’s supposed allure, namely its
artificially low prices and customer service, only reinforces the security
threat it poses to our allies. Huawei’s
products are cheaper thanks to IP theft and subsidies from the Chinese
government. Huawei’s customer service, meanwhile, can regularly dispatch Chinese engineers to poke
around the telecommunications infrastructure of major foreign corporations and
governments, multiplying the opportunities for new security threats. A 5G
network built and managed by Huawei is a system that gives dangerous amounts of
access to potential agents of the Chinese Communist Party. [...]
(7)
China spied on African Union, using Huawei equipment
The African Union headquarters hack and
Australia’s 5G network
13 Jul 2018
Danielle Cave
[...]
In January 2018, France’s Le Monde newspaper
published an investigation, based on multiple sources, which found that from
January 2012 to January 2017 servers based inside the AU’s headquarters in Addis
Ababa were transferring data between 12 midnight and 2 am—every single night—to unknown servers more
than 8,000 kilometres away hosted in Shanghai. Following the discovery of what
media referred to as ‘data theft’, it was also reported that microphones hidden
in desks and walls were detected and removed during a sweep for bugs.
The Chinese government refuted Le Monde’s
reporting. Chinese state media outlet CGTN (formerly CCTV) reported that China’s
foreign ministry spokesperson called the Le Monde investigation ‘utterly
groundless and ridiculous’. China’s ambassador to the AU said it was ‘ridiculous
and preposterous’. The BBC also quoted the ambassador as saying that the
investigation ‘is not good for the image of the newspaper itself’.
Other media outlets, including the Financial
Times, confirmed the data theft in reports published after the Le Monde
investigation. It’s also been reported on by think tanks and private
consultancies from around the world.
One AU official told the Financial Times
that there were ‘many issues with the building that are still being resolved
with the Chinese. It’s not just cybersecurity’.
The Le Monde report also said that since the
discovery of the data theft, ‘the AU has
acquired its own servers and declined China’s offer to configure them’.
Other media reports confirmed that servers and equipment were replaced and that
following the incident ‘other enhanced security features have also been
installed’.
Since the reported theft, the AU Commission
has put out a variety of tenders and awarded contracts in relation to the
headquarters’ information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure,
including bidding documents for a new WiFi system and a US$85,406 contract for
the ‘supply, delivery and installation of firewalls for the AU
Commission’.
This week an additional tender was published
in relation to the AU’s data centre—the same centre that is referenced in Le
Monde’s report. The tender invited organisations to bid for the ‘supply,
installation, configuration, testing and implementation of next generation
firewall data center for the African Union Commission’ and the bidding document
explained that:
African Union’s Data Center is a very
critical asset for the African Union. The data stored and systems hosted in this
data center need to be protected from any form of internal or external threats
and unauthorized access.
What seems to have been entirely missed in
the media coverage at the time was the name of the company that served as the key ICT provider inside the AU’s
headquarters.
It was Huawei.
The AU Commission signed a contract with
Huawei on 4 January 2012. By the time the building hosted its first AU Summit on
29 January 2012, Huawei’s ICT solution—which included computing, storage
sharing, WiFi and unified resource allocation services through cloud data
centres—was in play. As explained on Huawei’s website:
As a top organization coordinating
pan-African political, economic, and military issues, the African Union
Commission (AUC) needed a robust information system to support a large number of
conferences and the larger amounts of data that they entail. As most of this
information is of a confidential nature, legacy PCs were proving too vulnerable
to hackers, phishing, viruses, and other forms of compromise.
Huawei provided a range of services to the
AU. It provided cloud computing to the AU headquarters and signed a memorandum
of understanding with the AU on ICT infrastructure development and cooperation.
It also trained batches and batches of the AU Commission’s technical ICT
experts.
The main service that Huawei provided to the AU
was a ‘desktop cloud solution’. Huawei described the service provision as
follows:
The AU needed a robust solution to
streamline their conference operations and protect their data from a variety of
security threats. They chose Huawei’s FusionCloud Desktop Solution, which offers
computing, storage sharing, and resource allocation through cloud data
centers.
According to Huawei’s website, part of this
solution included providing equipment and resources to the AU’s data
centre:
The [Huawei] solution deployed all computing
and storage resources in the AU’s central data center where it seamlessly
connects to the original IT system. Then, Huawei installed Wi-Fi hotspots and
provided the industry’s first Thin Clients (TC) customized with Wi-Fi access
…Traditional PC-based architecture exposes data to serious security risks. With
Operating Systems (OS) and applications installed on individual machines, data
is vulnerable to viruses and plain text transmissions are easier to steal. The
FusionCloud solution moves the OS and applications to centralized servers in the
AU’s data center to minimize information leakage while TC security measures such
as authentication and encryption further secure data.
Huawei’s desktop cloud solution was central
to the AU’s cybersecurity and data-protection efforts. Huawei listed ‘better security’ as one of
its key benefits. Huawei described the provision of this better security as
follows:
Centralized storage in the data center
protects data from attack and prevents data leakage from PCs. The system further
protects with terminal authentication and encrypted transmission.
But despite the installation and use of
Huawei’s ICT services, reputable media outlets reported that the AU’s
confidential data wasn’t protected. [...]
There was also another company that had some
involvement in the AU headquarters’ ICT infrastructure: Chinese
telecommunications company ZTE. A current bidding document states: ‘New
Conference Center (China Building) uses ZTE and HUAWEI technologies.’ There’s
little information, in open-source documents at least, about the services ZTE
may currently or have previously provided. Nor is there information that
suggests it had an overarching role in the provision of ICT services inside the
headquarters. Job advertisements for telecommunications engineers inside the AU
Commission do cite managing a ‘ZTE integrated business exchange device (IBX)’ as
one of the role’s major responsibilities. [...]
(8)
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
Reuters
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.”
(9)
African Union Bugged by China - CFR
African Union Bugged by China: Cyber
Espionage as Evidence of Strategic Shifts
A number of African leaders have turned to
Chinese investment as a viable alternative to Western development aid. The
recent allegations of Chinese cyberespionage of the African Union's headquarters
might prompt them to reconsider.
March 7, 2018
by Mailyn Fidler
Mailyn Fidler is a fellow in New America's
Cybersecurity Initiative and is currently writing a book on African cyber
politics. You can follow her @mailynfidler.
Earlier this year, Le Monde reported (in
French) that confidential data on the IT network of the Chinese-built African
Union headquarters in Ethiopia was being siphoned off to Shanghai every night
between 2012 and 2017. Despite denials from China and the African Union, the
alleged espionage is worth analyzing as it highlights Africa’s geopolitical
importance to China and endangers Beijing’s preferred narrative of benevolent
relations with African states. Moving forward, African leaders will face a more
complex calculus when approaching the West and China with respect to tech
issues.
Although this sort of spycraft is fairly
routine, it signals Africa’s growing strategic importance to China. In a world
of finite resources, states spy on states that matter to them. China seems to
have calculated that the hard power benefits of accessing internal AU data to
gain the upper hand in negotiations with African leaders outweighed the soft
power benefits that came with building them a headquarters.
For their part, a number of African leaders
have turned to Chinese investment as a viable alternative to Western development
aid. Beijing has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure across the
continent, trades heavily with the continent, and opened its first overseas
military base in Djbouti. African leaders, including Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni,
have decried Western actors as “conceited, full of themselves, ignorant of our
conditions, and they make other people’s business their business, while the
Chinese just deal with you as one who represents your country.” China’s alleged
espionage takes it from benevolent business partner to potential political
meddler, adding a dimension of realpolitik to the relationship.
What Can African States Do?
According to Le Monde, the African Union
kept the Chinese surveillance secret for a year after discovering it, suggesting
that African leaders believed such information, if public, could have explosive
consequences for their relationship with China. Africa’s hesitation to disclose
this incursion demonstrates just how much influence Chinese strategic ambitions
have over choices African actors make. [...]
So far, however, African states have failed
to deal with China in response to the bugging in a manner that bolsters their
autonomy. Eight days after news of the Chinese espionage broke, the African
Union joined Chinese denials. The AU chairman appeared in Beijing with the
Chinese foreign minister calling the allegations "all lies" while the Chinese
foreign minister added that the allegation was a Western attempt to divide China
and Africa.
The African Union's failure to address
China's behavior demonstrates just how dramatically China’s influence has
narrowed African strategic choices. African states have failed to counterbalance
China’s interests by buying the party line. If this behavior continues, African
autonomy will take a real hit. The original Le Monde report quotes AU officials
rationalizing the Chinese behavior—"at least they never colonized us." This may
be true, but China does not have to colonize Africa to affect its destiny on
Chinese rather than African terms.
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