After US retreat, China breaks ground on Africa CDC headquarters project

Despite protests from the United States, work has started on the new China-funded US$80 million Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters south of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Among the officials at the launch of the first phase of construction on Monday were Amira Elfadil, commissioner for social affairs at the African Union, and ambassador Liu Yuxi, head of the Chinese mission to the AU. Elfadil said the African Union appreciated its partnership with China, which had offered to construct the building, and for China’s continuous support of the AU. “This partnership will help build the capacity of the public health sector in Africa,” Elfadil said. Addressing the event in a video link from Beijing, Qian Keming, China’s vice-minister of commerce, said building the Africa CDC was “a concrete action to follow through with commitments made at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation”. He underlined Chinese President Xi Jinping’s promise to support Africa in the fight against Covid-19 and start the construction of the headquarters ahead of schedule this year. “The groundbreaking ceremony will take the project into a new stage. Hope this flagship project in China-Africa practical cooperation can benefit African people and become another shining example in [the] China-Africa friendship,” Qian said. Did China bug the headquarters it built for the African Union? The site for the headquarters covers about 90,000 square metres, with the complex to cover nearly 40,000 square metres. When finished, the building will include an emergency operation centre, data centre, laboratory, resource centre, briefing rooms, a training centre, conference centre, offices and expatriate flats – all to be built, furnished and equipped by the Chinese government. Elfadil said construction of the Africa CDC’s five regional collaborating centres in Egypt, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia would start soon. The construction starts amid protests from the United States, which had opposed the move by Beijing to fund and build the project. In February the Financial Times quoted a US official as saying the project would be used to spy on “Africa’s genomic data”. The Chinese foreign ministry dismissed the reports at the time as “ridiculous”. “It shows that some people in the US always make presumptions by their own pattern,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow with the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, said US officials were quick to point out that the Africa CDC was modelled in form and function on the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, and that the idea for an Africa CDC emerged from the lead role the US played in responding to the 2015 West Africa Ebola outbreak. In 2016, China and the US signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly support the Africa CDC. The two sides agreed to support the building of the Africa CDC and strengthen Africa’s public health capacity. Both have public health experts working as consultants at the headquarters for technical support. But as the administration of US President Donald Trump moved to cut foreign aid and as the rivalry between Beijing and Washington escalated, the collaboration between the two superpowers collapsed. It left room for Beijing to offer to construct the building alone. Will China move Africa up from the end of coronavirus vaccine queue? David Shinn, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and a former US ambassador to Ethiopia, said this episode was closely linked to China’s construction – free of charge – of the African Union headquarters. Beijing funded and built the US$200 million African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, which houses the Africa CDC secretariat. “The US assumed it would continue to take the lead in this cooperative project with Africa. China offered to build the new headquarters free of charge, thus giving the appearance it was taking the lead,” Shinn said. “The US then suggested China would use the construction of the headquarters to ‘steal Africa’s genomic data’.” Shinn said the “Trump administration is obviously out of sorts over this development; it remains to be seen how the Biden administration will react to it”. Africa looks to Biden for reset in relations with the United States In a recent report, the Atlantic Council’s Africa Centre said Washington feared that if AU member states agreed to construction and if it went ahead, China would gain a footing in health management in Africa, further displacing the US. “This tension could amount to the loss of critical US support for the Africa CDC,” said the report titled “Traditional power competition in the post-Covid-19 African landscape”. The report said a Trump administration official claimed: “If the Chinese build the headquarters, the US will have nothing to do with Africa CDC,” citing those fears about China’s potential to steal genomic data stored within CDC branches. Critics have questioned the motives behind China’s largesse. In 2018, a French newspaper claimed that China was spying on the African Union after bugging the building. Le Monde claimed that China had installed hidden microphones in the building and was taping sensitive information. Beijing termed the reports as “groundless accusations”, while the AU called it “baseless”. As part of its aid diplomacy, Beijing has also funded several projects, including football stadiums, in nations such as Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Ghana, Angola and Zambia. It has also donated the construction of parliament buildings in Zimbabwe, the Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique and Sierra Leone. Further, China has gifted presidential palaces to countries such as Togo, Sudan, Burundi and Guinea-Bissau.

After US retreat, China breaks ground on Africa CDC headquarters project

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} The US fears being displaced in Africa by China’s apparent move into public health, according to report Beijing says speculation that it seeks to steal genomic data is ‘ridiculous’

The US fears being displaced in Africa by China’s apparent move into public health, according to report

Beijing says speculation that it seeks to steal genomic data is ‘ridiculous’