China denies claims it bugged building of African Union

Beijing. January 30. Silkroadnews - China denies the claims it bugged the building of the African Union, The Guardian reports.
“China and the African Union dismissed a report that Beijing had bugged the regional bloc’s headquarters, which it built and paid for in the Ethiopian capital,” the report said.
However, according to the French newspaper “Le Monde” referring to anonymous sources of the African Union, data from computers from the building of the African Union had been transferred to Chinese servers every night for five years. After it was discovered a year ago, the IT system of the building, including the servers, was changed. During a sweep for bugs after the discovery, microphones were also found hidden in desks and the walls, the newspaper reported.
Officials from China and Africa, who were in Addis Ababa at the annual block summit, denied the report of Le Monde.
China’s ambassador to the AU Kuang Weilin called the article “ridiculous and preposterous” and said that the purpose of its publication was to exert a 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. People in the west. They are not used to it and they are simply not comfortable with this,” the agency quoted him saying.
Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, who this year became the chairman of the African Union, said he did not know anything about it. His only concern, he said, was that the African Union, not China, should have built the headquarters.
The headquarters of the African Union worth $200 million and was fully funded and built by China in 2012. Some saw this as a symbol of Beijing’s desire for influence in Africa and access to the continent’s natural resources.
China’s investment in road and rail infrastructure is very visible throughout the continent. At the 2015 summit in South Africa, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to allocate $60 billion for aid and investment to the continent, saying it would continue building roads, railways and ports.