Two members of the United States House of Representatives, one a Republican and one a Democrat, continue the bipartisan effort in D.C. to apply increased vigilance and reduction in the use of technology, medicine, and other products produced in China, which is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a regime and form of government with which the U.S. is engaged in a competition for global superiority.
On May 10, Representatives Carlos A. Giménez (R-Fla.) and John Garamendi (D-Calif.) introduced the Port Crane Security and Inspection Act of 2023, a measure intended to prevent China and other adversaries from influencing and conducting surveillance on, and even sabotaging, the infrastructure of American seaports, which are critical components of the U.S. supply chain.
The legislation targets and places specific focus on the U.S.’s purchase and use of Chinese-made cargo cranes.
About 80 percent of the cranes used in U.S. ports are made in China.
As explained in a news release that the office of Rep. Giménez-a member of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Communist Chinese Party-issued: the bill limits the use of “foreign cranes made by U.S. adversaries, like Communist China, requires the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to inspect foreign cranes for potential security vulnerabilities before they are placed in operation and calls for CISA to report to Congress about critical and high-risk security vulnerabilities posed by foreign cranes in U.S. ports.”
Rep. Garamendi commented in the release that “Safeguarding our nation’s seaports from foreign cyberattacks and industrial espionage is not a partisan issue. The best way to ensure secure critical infrastructure at our major cargo ports is to make these cranes in America in the first place, and that’s what Congressman Gimenez’s and my bill accomplishes.”
Giménez’s and Garamendi’s bill was filed in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article, referenced in the release, published on March 5 that caused a stir among Congressional lawmakers. The article reported that U.S. security and Pentagon officials are deeply concerned about the ability of the CCP to use cranes made in China and operating in U.S. ports to imperil American security.
“Some national-security and Pentagon officials have compared ship-to-shore cranes made by the China-based manufacturer, ZPMC, to a Trojan horse,” reported the Wall Street Journal. “While comparably well-made and inexpensive, they contain sophisticated sensors that can register and track the provenance and destination of containers, prompting concerns that China could capture information about material being shipped in or out of the country to support U.S. military operations around the world.”
Growing Threat
The Port Crane Security and Inspection Act also follows the episode this past winter that put the American military defense on high alert: the Chinese spy balloon that an American fighter jet shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, but not before the balloon had traveled over part of Alaska and into Canada, and then re-entered the U.S. in Montana, and continued eastward, along the way, according to U.S. Security officials, collecting information from sensitive areas.In his opening remarks on the first hearing, on Feb. 28, of the House Select Committee on China, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), provided his insight and perspective on the CCP threat.
Gallagher referenced the 1991 book, “America Against America, written by Wang Huning, a Chinese scholar and now one of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the top leadership body of the CCP.
Gallagher said the book was a “critique of the internal conflict found at the heart of American society,” and that it “also describes the strategy that Wang, General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have pursued in the years since, pitting Americans who they believe to be greedy and factional against each other to undermine our country.
“The CCP has found friends on Wall Street, on K St., in Fortune 500 C Suites, in the public health community, who are ready and willing to oppose our efforts to push back? This strategy has worked well in the past and the CCP is confident it will work again. Our task on this committee is to ensure that it does not,” he said.
American Association of Port Authorities President and CEO Chris Connor told The Epoch Times there is “zero evidence to support sensationalized claims that our equipment isn’t secure.
“The cranes our ports procure, based on cost, use separate software purchased from allied countries like Japan and Sweden, and they undergo rigorous security inspections with federal government partners to safeguard against cyber threats. What our ports are more concerned with, regular Americans are probably wondering, and what DC lawmakers should be asking is: why can’t we produce this hardware here in the United States?”
This article has been updated with a statement from the American Association of Port Authorities.
