section_path: Politics/Headquarters/Espionage accusations
section_name: Espionage accusations
paragraph_text: Espionage accusations
  
  On 26 January 2018, five years after the completion of the building of the AU Headquarters, the French newspaper Le Monde published an article stating that the Chinese government had heavily bugged the building, installing listening devices in the walls and furniture and setting up the computer system to copy data to servers in Shanghai daily. The Chinese government denied that they bugged the building, stating that the accusations were "utterly groundless and ridiculous". Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn rejected the French media report. Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union Commission, said the allegations in the Le Monde ' s report were false. "These are totally false allegations and I believe that we are completely disregarding them." The African Union replaced its Chinese-supplied servers and started encrypting its communications following the event.