On Friday, a joint investigation found a rising threat to U.S. economic and homeland security in the Chinese Communist Party’s dominance in U.S. port infrastructure.
According to a report from House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN), Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security Chairman Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), and Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), companies owned and operated in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), pose a significant threat to port security. Companies like Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC) which dominates the global market of ship-to-shore port cranes, create cybersecurity and national security vulnerabilities, the report said, because of their ability to track the movement of goods through our ports or even halt port activity. ZPMC currently accounts for nearly 80 percent of the STS cranes in operation at U.S. ports, the report found.
“The evidence gathered during our joint investigation indicates that ZPMC could, if desired, serve as a Trojan horse capable of helping the CCP and the PRC military exploit and manipulate U.S. maritime equipment and technology at their request. This vulnerability in our critical infrastructure has the potential to affect Americans from coast to coast,” the report said. “While the Biden administration’s executive orders on maritime security are an important step forward, our investigation proves immense damage may have already been done. This report must be a wake-up call for maritime sector stakeholders and the federal government to address this threat with far more urgency. Our homeland security depends on it.”
According to the report, U.S. ports are reliant upon PRC state-owned companies and contract with those companies provide almost no language barring or limiting the unauthorized modification or access to equipment and technology bound for U.S. ports. The lack of unauthorized modification language means the PRC state-owned companies are not contractually barred from installing backdoors into equipment or modifying technology, the Congressmen wrote.
The report also found that ZPMC is a cybersecurity risk and had installed cellular modems onto STS cranes at certain U.S. ports – installations outside of the scope of existing contracts with the ports – and that the ZPMC has repeatedly requested remote access to its STS cranes operating at U.S. ports with a particular focus on those ports on the West Coast. The report said if granted, the remote access to potentially be extended to the other PRC government entities, posing a national security risk to the United States.