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Paper short abstract

This paper examines an advanced state of China's digital 'going out' in Africa. Huawei has moved from a predominant prviate vendor to a public 'systems connector' inside the state, speaking to Kenyan concerns of cost but also localization, as well as serving broader Chinese soft power ambitions.

Paper long abstract

While China’s ‘Going Out’ policy began officially in 2001, Huawei’s expansion overseas preceded this, with a focus on the African continent. Once constrained by the political economy at home, Huawei embarked on a programme of expansion abroad, focusing on areas overlooked by Western markets: in this case, cutting-edge technologies in Africa (Wen 2020). While Huawei is an autonomous non-state actor, now a global powerhouse with more autonomy than almost any other Chinese company, its expansion in Africa has both shaped and been shaped by broader Afro-Chinese relations. This paper looks at Huawei’s predominance in Kenya, a regional technological and industrial leader, in which Huawei has reached an advanced state of maturity. Examining its recent expansion into public sector services, specifically health, this paper first provides an overview of the types of technology instituted into Kenya’s Ministry of Health at both national and, increasingly, county levels, backed by Huawei’s well-documented dominance in Kenya’s wider tech-infrastructure. This signifies Huawei’s move well beyond that of private sector ‘vendor’ to that of ‘systems integrator’ inside the state. Second, drawing on this review, we reflect on how Huawei’s advanced technological ecosystem in Kenya shapes Afro-Sino relations more broadly. In this, Kenyan ministries are satisfied by China’s established commercial but also political advantages regarding cost, reliability and crucially localization, away from Western influence but also Western data offshoring and regulations. China’s soft power, indeed, technonationalist, ambitions are satisfied, whereby China remains the purveyor of some of the world’s most advanced technologies, in their most advancing state.