Is China exporting its authoritarian politics via its export of communication technologies?

While the world debates 5G technologies, and the US takes aim at China's telecoms giant Huawei, this is a live topic across the continent, too.

From internet blackouts in Ethiopia... to facial recognition software in South Africa... to the recent public embrace by Nigerian politicians of China's own social media policies.

Its not so simple, says Iginio Gagliardone is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford who splits his time between South Africa and Ethiopia.

He has written a book on the subject called – China, Africa, and the future of the internet.