Chinese ICT and Smart City Initiatives in Kenya

Abstract

Chinese ICT and Smart City Initiatives in Kenya Bulelani Jili (bio) There are many threads of discourse in Africa-China relations, inspired by growing flows of investment, trade, and aid. One important consideration in the budding relationships between African states and China is the adoption of digital infrastructure and surveillance technologies.1 Many experts have argued that China's intentions are to garner access to African developing markets while also allowing Beijing a "backdoor" through which to secure access to data. Thus, research and media coverage have focused disproportionately on Chinese reasons and incentives in the proliferation of information and communications technology (ICT) and surveillance technology, but little systematic attention has focused on the multiple uses, properties, and applications of these digital tools in local environments. For this reason, this essay seeks to critically examine some of the more familiar preoccupations about the exportation of Chinese governance and surveillance technologies to Africa in the process of developing countries' ICT infrastructure and smart cities. The essay chiefly brings to the fore the local factors that contribute to the growing use of Chinese digital infrastructure in Kenya. There is limited analytical research on the spread of Chinese digital infrastructure and its consequences for African local environments and actors. Accordingly, the essay seeks to examine the growing use of Chinese-produced digital infrastructure in Kenya and its consequences. It focuses attention on the often-neglected details of Chinese operations and local smart city initiatives. [End Page 40] Precisely, the aim is to expand understanding of how local factors and conditions mediate China's growing geopolitical footprint. This essay is divided into four parts. The first section discusses the Kenyan case as an example of the establishment of Chinese ICT infrastructure in an African context. It explores the corporate and public nexuses that buttress the vision of a digitalized Kenyan society and demonstrates that Chinese engagements are in part a consequence of local factors, which challenges notions of a Chinese strategy to export normative values and surveillance practices. At the same time, this position does not necessarily imply the absence of Chinese state strategy in Africa and threats to civil liberties. Rather, it simply illustrates how local and global factors play into each other and how they determine practical outcomes. The second section looks at the adoption of smart cities in Kenya and the so-called safe city model, which includes digital surveillance technologies. The third section addresses Beijing's "no strings attached" policy and contends that China's proclivity to financially support state actors regardless of their regime type or human rights record renders citizens in these states more vulnerable to government transgressions. The essay concludes by noting that even in the context of a democratic government like Kenya's, bolstering state surveillance capacity without robust checks and balances renders citizens more vulnerable to the misuse of digital tools. Building ICT Infrastructure in Kenya In 1998, the Kenya Communication Act ended the state-run monopoly held by Kenya Posts and Telecommunication Corporation.2 In 2006, the Ministry of Information and Communications ushered in the National ICT Policy, which fully liberalized the telecommunications sector and created a framework for private actors to enter the ICT market.3 By introducing this liberalization strategy, the Kenyan government took a principal role in shaping the country's ICT sector as one focused on privatizing state-owned enterprises and attracting private investment in undersea fiber-optic cables, internet service providers, and mobile network operators. The vision, set in [End Page 41] the 2006 National ICT Policy and again later in the 2020 Policy Gazette, promoted the notion of ICT as a development tool for improving health, employment, and education outcomes. Digital infrastructure is thus a means by which politicians build and plan the future of Kenya's development. Despite these ICT policy changes, the government in 2006 did not have the infrastructure capacity to palpably realize its development ambitions. Kenya relied on satellite technology for international connectivity, which was both limited and prohibitively expensive for most citizens.4 To transition from narrowband, which operates on satellite technology, to fiber-optic-powered broadband, Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE were contracted to build the required infrastructure to close this gap...